Police found no demand, theft or prior connection between Cole Klemke and the pregnant woman he admitted attacking at an ATM.
SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Cole Klemke’s guilty plea established criminal responsibility for the 2024 attempted murder of a pregnant woman at a Mira Mesa ATM, but his 10-year prison sentence closed the case without a publicly reported answer to one of its oldest questions: why the stranger was attacked.
From the first police accounts through Klemke’s August 2026 sentencing, authorities consistently described an assault with no known relationship, demand or apparent exchange preceding it. Investigators said the woman did not appear to know Klemke, he did not demand her cash or other property and nothing was taken. Video reviewed by police showed the woman was apparently unaware that he was approaching from behind. The later guilty plea settled whether Klemke committed attempted murder. It did not, based on the public reports reviewed for this story, establish a motive.
That distinction matters because several facts surrounding the case could otherwise invite conclusions the available evidence does not support. Klemke had faced allegations from a separate knife-related encounter earlier in June 2024, and court records reported after the ATM stabbing described earlier disputes involving his family. Those records provide background about matters police and prosecutors had encountered before his arrest. They do not prove why he selected the woman outside Target, and neither prosecutors nor police publicly tied those earlier events to a specific motive for the June 15 attack.
The woman was 25 and four months pregnant when she pulled up to a drive-thru ATM near the Target shopping center on Mira Mesa Boulevard at about 10 a.m. She got out of her vehicle to reach the machine. Prosecutors later alleged that Klemke watched from across the parking lot for about a minute before walking toward her. Police said the woman was attacked after withdrawing money. Initial reports documented wounds to her neck, chin and shoulder. Later testimony said she was stabbed in the face and neck, fell to the ground, was punched and faced further attempts to stab her.
The woman was not passive during the assault. Prosecutors said she kicked Klemke and succeeded in fighting him off. He fled, and early police reporting said other people came to her aid. Emergency crews transported her to a hospital, where she was treated and released the same day. The Police Department characterized the wounds as non-life-threatening. More than two years later, however, she told the sentencing court that survival did not mean a quick return to normal. She reported scars, nerve damage and continuing emotional effects, including a period of nearly a year when fear kept her from comfortably going into public alone.
The lack of an announced motive shaped the earliest investigative description of the case. Sgt. Erich Drilling said after reviewing video that there was no meaningful interaction before the attack. The absence of a demand also complicated any simple assumption that the woman had been targeted for the money she had just withdrawn. Although prosecutors initially filed a robbery charge along with attempted murder and mayhem, police publicly said no property was taken. The reports reviewed for this update do not explain the legal theory behind that original robbery count or give a count-by-count account of its final disposition after Klemke pleaded guilty to attempted murder.
Whatever investigators could not explain about motive, they developed evidence that quickly pointed them toward a suspect. Detectives obtained surveillance photographs and video showing a man in the nearby Target shortly before the assault. The San Diego Police Department released images to the public, and several people provided tips. Detective Kate Brooker later testified that a person who saw the images contacted police and identified Klemke. Officers arrested him on June 16, the day after the attack. He was then 27 and was described by police as a resident of Carmel Valley.
At Klemke’s first court appearance, Deputy District Attorney Spencer Sharpe supplied details that had not been part of the short police announcement. Sharpe alleged that Klemke watched the woman before approaching and characterized the assault as unprovoked. Klemke pleaded not guilty at that stage to attempted murder, mayhem and robbery. He was held without bail. Because those assertions came at the charging stage, they remained allegations while the prosecution was pending. The later attempted-murder conviction came only after Klemke entered a guilty plea in 2026.
Sharpe also told the court about a June 1 encounter that prosecutors said had been under review before the ATM stabbing occurred. In that separate matter, Klemke was accused of stepping in front of a man driving to work, marking the hood of the man’s vehicle with a knife and demanding that he get out. The driver left instead. Klemke had been arrested in connection with the episode, according to the prosecutor, but the District Attorney’s Office had not finished reviewing the case before June 15. Felony vandalism and brandishing allegations were later filed in connection with the earlier incident.
Separate reporting in 2024 also described a domestic violence restraining-order request Klemke’s family had filed in 2020. Court documents cited accusations of threats, substance use and family efforts to get him treatment. The filing was later dropped, according to local reporting. Those allegations were not findings about the ATM attack, and they do not supply a verified explanation for it. No responsible account can move from a prior family filing or an earlier alleged knife incident to a conclusion about Klemke’s state of mind or motive in Mira Mesa without evidence authorities themselves have not publicly supplied.
The prosecution moved forward over the next two years. At a 2026 preliminary hearing, testimony described the physical struggle and the investigative steps that led to Klemke’s identification. The woman had been knocked down but fought back, while the surveillance photographs distributed by police generated the tip that named Klemke. The hearing put enough of the prosecution’s evidence into the public record to provide a fuller reconstruction of the incident, but the case still did not produce a trial at which prosecutors would have presented a complete theory to jurors.
Instead, Klemke pleaded guilty July 10 to attempted murder. Reports published at the time said a 10-year state prison term was expected under the resolution. A judge imposed that sentence Aug. 11. The plea was consequential because it converted what had long been an accusation into an admitted offense: Klemke accepted criminal responsibility for attempting to kill the woman. At the same time, a guilty plea to the offense did not require public reporting to supply an explanation for why he acted, and none appeared in the sentencing coverage reviewed for this article.
The survivor’s remote statement at sentencing therefore supplied a different kind of answer — not about what motivated the defendant, but about what the unexplained attack meant for the person who endured it. She recalled trying to control her bleeding after reaching her car and described a recovery that continued years after the hospital released her. She said physical scars and nerve damage remained and that her sense of safety around strangers had been deeply affected. Public accounts do not report an adverse outcome involving her pregnancy, and the available material does not support speculation about one.
Currently, Klemke’s reported disposition remains a 10-year state prison sentence for attempted murder. Authorities have not publicly announced a motive in later coverage. The result leaves the case with a clear judicial outcome and a well-documented investigative path, but also with a boundary the public evidence does not cross: the reason Klemke chose the woman at the ATM remains unknown.
Author note: Last updated September 22, 2026.