The Philly man charged with stabbing another driver during a road-rage dispute in Lower Merion will face a county judge
Samuel Marquez was held for trial on aggravated assault and related crimes for the stabbing, which took place Sept. 6 on the Blue Route, prosecutors said.
After being boxed in by two cars, rear-ended by a U-Haul truck, and punched in the face through his car’s open window, a man driving to Philadelphia on I-76 heard Samuel Marquez say a few words that filled him with dread.
“Go get my knife.”
The man testified Tuesday at Marquez’s preliminary hearing that, fearing for his life, he crawled out of the window of his damaged Mercedes-Benz and called 911 from a median on the Blue Route in Lower Merion after taking the exit from I-76.
And while trying to read the license plate of one of the vehicles involved in the four-car crash Sept. 6, the man said he felt a blow to his side. At first, he said, he thought Marquez, of Kensington, had punched him. Then he saw the blood.
Marquez, 40, was held for trial on aggravated assault and related crimes for the alleged road-rage stabbing, which left the victim with a 2-inch wound to his lower abdomen, as well as a shallow slash to his left arm.
Marquez’s attorney, Andrew Levin, said afterward that, given the chaotic nature of the fight on the highway, it was unclear who held the knife that stabbed the victim: The melee involved Marquez, as well as his nephew, his girlfriend, and another male relative.
“You have multiple vehicles involved, and what I believe is a mutual physical altercation,” Levin said. “It’s clear that the complaining witness got stabbed. I don’t think it’s clear by who.”
Assistant District Attorney Robert George said the evidence was clear that Marquez was the one holding the knife, which investigators later recovered, still covered in the victim’s blood, from behind a Sunoco where he parked the U-Haul.
That truck was part of a caravan of vehicles, including a Toyota Sienna minivan and an Acura SUV, whose drivers were heading to Philadelphia to help Marquez move to the city from Reading, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
During the trip, a minivan driven by Marquez’s girlfriend had engine trouble, and the group pulled onto the highway’s shoulder to fix it, the affidavit said.
When they merged back onto the road, they cut closely in front of a Mercedes-Benz, the driver of which told police he honked his horn and drove around the group.
The man testified Tuesday that Marquez was driving aggressively, veering into his lane and gesturing at him as he drove. The other vehicles connected to Marquez tried to pass him, but he said he didn’t allow them to do so. He also brake-checked the U-Haul to get it off his tail.
“Wouldn’t you, if you thought something bad was going to happen?” the man testified.
Eventually, the man took the exit onto a ramp connecting I-76 with I-476, known as the Blue Route. As he did so, the U-Haul intentionally rammed his vehicle, while the minivan and SUV drove past and stopped in front of him, he said.
The fight, and eventual stabbing, broke out afterward, and Marquez fled the scene in the U-Haul.
He was later arrested at Memorial Park in Bryn Mawr. The knife police believe he used in the stabbing was found nearby.
At the time of the highway stabbing, Marquez had an active arrest warrant out of Delaware County for allegedly robbing a Royal Farms gas station in Upper Chichester at gunpoint in November 2022.
In that case, Marquez plotted the robbery with Elizabeth Serrano, his girlfriend, who worked at the store as a cashier, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
Serrano pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery and a related crime in 2024, and served a year in county jail, court records show.
Marquez remained in custody in the road-rage case in lieu of $1 million bail. He will be arraigned in Montgomery County court in November.
