PARIS – A Rumford man accused of stabbing his wife three times Thursday at their home said he intended to kill her and then himself because “she got cocky,” according to a police statement read in court Friday.

Scott White, 46, of 139 Penobscot St. was arraigned Friday morning in South Paris District Court on charges of attempted murder, elevated aggravated assault and terrorizing.

His wife, Tracey White, 47, remained at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. Assistant District Attorney Joe O’Connor said she is expected to survive.

Late Friday afternoon, hospital spokesman Randy Dustin said she had asked that no information about her be released. On Thursday night, her condition was described as fair by the hospital.

At Friday’s arraignment, O’Connor recommended bail of $100,000 cash or $500,000 surety. However, Judge Rick Lawrence set it at $25,000 cash or $50,000 worth of real estate and ordered that White have no contact with his wife and not possess or use alcohol, illegal drugs, or dangerous weapons. White told the judge he has relatives in Rumford who own property.

As of early Friday evening, he remained in jail. David Whittier was appointed to represent him Friday.

According to an affidavit by Patrolman Matthew Noyes, who arrested White shortly after he fled the scene in a car, White told him he stabbed Tracey White in the back and chest because she got cocky.

Noyes said he asked Scott White if his wife won the argument.

“‘She thought she did,'” was his reply, the officer wrote.

“I asked him if he wanted to kill her, He said, ‘I was gonna kill her’ and then kill himself,” Noyes wrote.

“‘It started last night (Wednesday) when she locked me out. I stabbed her, she pissed me off. Stabbed her three times,'” Noyes quoted White in the affidavit.

“‘Hey, I stabbed her, plain and simple,'” Noyes said White told him twice, the first time when he surrendered and the second after he was read his rights.

According to the officer’s statement, at 4:43 p.m. Thursday off-duty Oxford County Deputy Robert Grinnell reported to a county 911 dispatcher that a woman had been stabbed and was bleeding badly.

Responding, along with other officers and an ambulance, Noyes spotted the suspect’s care on Rumford Avenue and it pulled over in front of Hanson’s Automotive. The driver got out and walked to the back of it with his hands in the air, the officer wrote.

Later identified as Scott White, the shirtless driver in denim shorts “had blood on numerous parts of his body,” Noyes said.

White told Noyes he would have continued to stab his wife, but “She got away from me.”

After being stabbed once in the left shoulder area, under her armpit and in her ribs, according to witnesses, Tracey White ran screaming from her house, where neighbors Faye Cureton and Pauline Wilson helped get her out of the intersection of Penobscot and Maine Avenue.

They took her to a hedge-lined cement stairwell, where she was tended to by a Med-Care Ambulance crew and a Rumford firefighter, then taken by ambulance to Rumford Hospital.

Noyes further stated that Scott White told him he stabbed her with a 6-inch steak knife, then threw it in the kitchen.

Contacted Thursday afternoon by phone in Rumford, Detective Lt. Mark Cayer said that he and Detectives Daniel Garbarini and Paul Casey “secured lots of evidence” from the Whites’ house.

Cayer declined to give specifics about the incident, but said they believe alcohol was involved on Scott White’s part.

Cayer also said Rumford police responded to a domestic incident at the Whites’ house in 2005, but there was no assault. Since then, police had handled a few minor civil issues.

“There was no protection order out on him that I’m aware of,” Cayer said. An assistant clerk at Rumford District Court confirmed that Friday afternoon.

The case against Scott White is expected to be presented to the Oxford County grand jury in August.