Five employees were stabbed inside the kitchen of the Dos Coyotes Border Cafe at Thunder Valley Casino, near Lincoln, Calif., on August 19, 2026, and none of them were hurt critically, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office. Accused of stabbing five of his co-workers in that kitchen is a 22-year-old restaurant worker, Joseph Naugle, whose family has expressed sorrow for the victims. Relatives said he has struggled for years with severe physical and mental health problems.
The family’s statement went to KCRA 3 on Sunday, August 23. In it, relatives extended their sympathies to the Thunder Valley employees and their loved ones and said they were praying continuously for their recovery and peace of mind.
“While we cannot speak on the details of the active legal case, we hope there will be an understanding of the complex medical realities involved,” the family said.
A motive has not been made public. Nothing further on what preceded the attack was available right away, officials said, and the investigation is continuing, according to the sheriff’s office.
Violence Inside the Restaurant Kitchen
The sheriff’s office, which announced the incident in a Facebook post, said the stabbing was reported about 7 p.m. All five victims were stabbed in the kitchen area of the restaurant, a Thunder Valley Casino spokesperson said that night, and the restaurant employed everyone caught up in the violence. No casino guests were involved.
An area hospital received one of the wounded, who was driven there with injuries that were not considered life-threatening. Thunder Valley emergency personnel and Cal Fire crews treated the other four, whose injuries also were not life-threatening. Paramedics were photographed tending to workers on the casino floor in images shared with KCRA 3, while the station’s LiveCopter 3 captured aerial footage of the investigation.
By then, containment of the scene had already happened. A suspect was taken into custody within minutes of deputies arriving at the casino, the sheriff’s office said. The same striking image was recorded by both a KCRA 3 news crew and a CBS News Sacramento camera: a man wearing a kitchen apron, his hands cuffed, being guided into the back of a patrol vehicle.
Everyone Involved Worked at Dos Coyotes
Naugle was the man identified by the sheriff’s office, which said he appeared to know every one of the people who were stabbed. The casino spokesperson had said on the night of the attack that Naugle and all five victims were Dos Coyotes employees. None of the five has been publicly identified.
No other suspects were being sought, officials said. An active threat faced neither the public nor anyone inside the casino, and no evacuation of Thunder Valley took place. Doors closed at the restaurant; the rest of the property stayed open for the evening, in a decision that showed just how narrowly the bloodshed had stayed inside one back-of-house workspace.
Thunder Valley Casino Resort sits in unincorporated Placer County about 30 miles northeast of Sacramento, owned and operated by the United Auburn Indian Community, and draws crowds nightly to its gaming floor and restaurants. Dos Coyotes Border Cafe operates as one of those dining options.
Charges, Plea and Court Dates
The sheriff’s office identified him as Joseph Benedict John Naugle and booked him on two counts of attempted murder, saying it expected more charges to follow. ABC10 has reported five charges in all, covering attempted murder and assault.
He made his first court appearance Friday, August 21, but the arraignment was continued and no plea was entered that day.
At a hearing Wednesday, August 26, in Placer County Superior Court, Naugle pleaded not guilty to felony attempted murder. At that same hearing, according to the Placer County District Attorney’s Office, the defense asked the court to appoint a doctor; what the examination is meant to establish has not been spelled out in any account of the hearing. An advisory hearing is set for September 2.
Why remains the question that has hung over the case since the first patrol cars pulled up to the casino, and it is still unanswered. No explanation for the attack has come from the sheriff’s office or from prosecutors, and while the family’s statement pointed to Naugle’s medical history, it stopped short of addressing the allegations directly.
For the five wounded workers, the outcome was, by the narrowest of measures, better than it might have been. All five survived, none of them with life-threatening injuries, and four were patched up on site. Credit for that ending belongs partly to how fast casino medics, Cal Fire and the deputies reached the kitchen — a matter of minutes.