Michelle Ann Kane, 43

Michelle Ann Kane, a 43-year-old white woman, was stabbed to death by her estranged husband on Saturday, June 15 in the 7100 block of Deveron Ridge Road in West Hills, according to authorities.

Michael Rodney Kane, 46, allegedly forced his way into a home where his estranged wife was staying, stabbed a man in the hand who tried to protect the woman, then chased her down the street and stabbed her, police said.  

Neighbors heard the commotion and stepped outside to find the woman mortally wounded.  She was pronounced dead on the street at 7:57 a.m. in the hilly, well-kept neighborhood of mostly 1960s tract homes, many of them occupied by their original owners. 

Just hours before the stabbing, she had gone to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Topanga station to report that her husband had vandalized the home they once shared.  

Michael Kane, an LAUSD elementary school teacher, fled the scene of the stabbing but was arrested June 17 in San Bernardino County, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. 

He was charged June 19 with one count of murder in connection with the stabbing, prosecutors said.  He was also charged with one count of first-degree burglary with a person present, one count of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of making criminal threats.  He pleaded not guilty to the charges June 19.

He is being held on $1,010,000 bail, sheriff’s department records show.  

-- Kim Christensen and Nicole Santa Cruz