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Woman Tells Cops She Fatally Knifed Driver, Apologized

Clarence Blair Dies In Uniontown Hospital After Redstone Stabbing

POSTED: 9:39 am EDT June 27, 2009
UPDATED: 6:54 pm EDT June 30, 2009

State police say a Fayette County woman stabbed a man during an argument, then apologized and drove him to Uniontown Hospital, where he later died.

Clarence "Dukey" Blair, 48, of Brownsville, was stabbed on Main Street in Redstone Township shortly after 10 p.m. Friday, police said.

"I don't know how we are going to go on without him. I really don't know. It just doesn't even seem real right now," said Blair's sister, Cassi Gazboda.

Dayna McMaster, 32, also of Brownsville, is charged with criminal homicide in connection with the stabbing, which police said was done with a hunting knife.

Clarence Blair
Clarence "Dukey" Blair

In the criminal complaint, police said McMaster told them that she was a passenger in Blair's pickup truck and they got into an argument.

McMaster told police that she grabbed the knife, which was in the truck, and used it on Blair after he had stopped the vehicle in a rural area and began assaulting her, according to the complaint.

"No, I don't believe my brother would ever do anything like that," said Gazboda. "She's assaulted him several times and this was just the last of it."

Court records indicate McMaster was charged with harassment and simple assault in 2006, but the charges were later dismissed.

"I've known Dukey for 40 years, and he'd give you the shirt off his back. He was not an abusive person," friend Starr Hager said.

Police also said in the complaint that McMaster acknowledged stabbing Blair in the chest and apologized to him for it.

McMaster is being held in the county prison awaiting a preliminary hearing that has yet to be scheduled.