A man accused of stabbing his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend at their Casper home last month was bound over for trial in 7th District Court on Thursday on a number of charges, including attempted second-degree murder.

Branden Marken, 33, is charged with two counts each of attempted second-degree murder and aggravated assault, plus three felony domestic violence charges.

The domestic violence counts are felonies because Marken was convicted of domestic assault twice before - once in 1999 and again in 2002 - for assaulting his ex-wife.

The attempted second-degree murder and aggravated assault charges were filed July 19, the day Marken's ex-girlfriend, Jaxine Kuncl, and her boyfriend, Lawrence Shannon Curtis, were stabbed in an upstairs apartment at 431 N. Elk St.

The victims' injuries were serious but not fatal.

Assistant District Attorney Mike Schafer filed the domestic assault charges about a week after Marken was jailed for the stabbing.

Natrona County Sheriff's Deputy Brion Fauber and Casper Police Detective Shawn Jenkins testified against Marken at his preliminary hearing in Natrona County Circuit Court on Thursday.

Marken, wearing orange jail garb, attended the hearing with his public defender Fred Dethlefson.

Fauber told the court about the alleged domestic attacks he said occurred months prior to the stabbings. The attacks are said to be the main reason Kuncl ended her relationship with Marken.

Fauber told the court he went to the Elk Street residence on May 20, where Kuncl reported she had just been assaulted by Marken at his residence at 2659 Allendale.

Kuncl went there to gather her belongings and she and Marken started arguing.

He shoved her down and put his right hand around her neck, and later, tried to push her off the front porch, Fauber said.

Three days before that attack, Kuncl said Marken tried to strangle her, according to Fauber. She further alleged Marken held her down and tried to suffocate her with a blanket and pillow over her head.

"'She said began to lose consciousness,'" Fauber told the court.

Fauber said he took pictures of scratches on Kuncl's neck from the first incident and a bruise on her leg from the second attack.

On March 28 or 29, Marken allegedly punched Kuncl in the face and damaged her teeth. Photos were taken of that as well, Fauber said.

Jenkins was called to testify about his investigation of the July 19 stabbing.

At the apartment, he said, police found Curtis in the living room bleeding from his left shoulder and Kuncl on the bedroom floor, where she had been stabbed in the lower back.

Marken fled the apartment before police got there but was apprehended later that day about a block away, he said.

Marken, who was reportedly staying at the victims' apartment temporarily, was trying to convince Kuncl to leave Curtis and come back to him when an argument ensued and resulted in Kuncl and Curtis getting stabbed, Jenkins told the court.

After police arrested Marken, he said he swung at Curtis with his fist but he denied he used a knife, Jenkins said.

Police recovered the knife from the apartment the day of the stabbing, he said.

Marken remains jailed on a $500,000 bond.

Reporter Tara Westreicher can be reached at (307) 266-0593 or at tara.westreicher@casperstrtribune.net.