A former Wooldridge man will spend the next five years in a state prison after pleading guilty last month to domestic assault.

A Cooper County judge announced the sentence Monday, Mar. 23 for 62-year-old Donald C Rybolt of Columbia, who entered into a plea deal with prosecutors. Court documents say that Cooper County deputies responded to a reported domestic disturbance at a Wooldridge residence the evening of June 10, 2025. Deputies alleged that, according to witnesses, Rybolt had stabbed a woman a couple times and also punched her as she was attempting to move her belongings out of the home. Deputies added that they arrived to find Rybolt leaning into a parked vehicle, with a woman sitting in the back passenger seat with blood over her right arm. Deputies later learned that the woman had previously been in a romantic relationship with Rybolt for several months.

The plea deal reached last month dropped a charge of armed criminal assault, and downgraded the domestic assault charge from first degree to second degree.