Idaho elected official accused of stabbing girl in attack along Payette River
An Idaho elected official has been accused of holding a woman at knifepoint and stabbing a girl during an altercation with an Ada County family on the Payette River last summer, according to a civil lawsuit the family filed against him and two other men.
Boise County Commissioner Darrell “Lindy” Lindstrom and two others are named as defendants in the lawsuit, which was filed in Boise County on March 26 on behalf of plaintiffs Abby and Treyson Beard, and a minor identified as T.B. The lawsuit claims the defendants “touched, pushed, hit and beat” the family and caused traumatic injuries, including ongoing emotional distress.
Lindstrom did not respond to a request for comment.
According to the lawsuit, the Beards were floating the Main Payette River on private rafts on Aug. 23, 2025, when they neared Parnell Beach Recreation Site, a take-out point about 4 miles north of Horseshoe Bend on Idaho 55.
About a mile from Parnell Beach, a group of men on jet skis began riding close to the Beards’ rafts at high speeds, the lawsuit said. The jet ski riders allegedly had open containers of alcohol, and one had two small children on his jet ski.
T.B., the minor, “directed gestures” at the group of men “because they were being reckless, dangerous and the presence of children was distressing,” the lawsuit said.
When the family pulled their rafts from the river at Parnell Beach around 7 p.m., the men followed and began to behave aggressively, according to the lawsuit, with one of the defendants and an unidentified man approaching and asking “who wanted to fight.” The lawsuit said the unidentified man pushed Abby to the ground and pushed T.B. into the water, prompting an unrelated third party, a man named Dylan, to intervene in a physical altercation with the unidentified man.
Treyson filmed the fight between Dylan and the man, the lawsuit said, during which one of the defendants and the unidentified man allegedly threatened to kill the Beards.
Abby Beard then retrieved a “river safety knife,” still in its sheath, from her raft because she feared for her life and her children’s safety, the lawsuit said. She demanded the men from the jet ski group leave the area, which they did. According to the lawsuit, they took the two children from the jet ski to a nearby property before returning with Lindstrom, the third defendant and another unidentified man. The lawsuit said the identities of the two unidentified men are still unknown.
The men were confrontational when they returned to the beach and asked who was “gonna get it,” the lawsuit said.
“Abby, scared for her life and her children’s lives, removed the knife from its sheath and brandished the knife in the hope to scare off the aggressive and confrontational men,” the lawsuit said.
That’s when Lindstrom allegedly grabbed Abby, forced her to the ground, wrestled the now-sheathed knife from her, held it to her throat and said, “I will f--king kill you, b---h,” the lawsuit said.
T.B. tried to intervene, the lawsuit said, and Lindstrom stabbed her in the leg, then threw the knife into the river.
At the same time, one of the other defendants punched Treyson in the back of the head before getting on top of him and beating him, the lawsuit said. This attack caused “severe facial and dental injuries that required medical and dental attention.”
According to the lawsuit, Lindstrom got off of Abby, who stood up and saw the injuries to Treyson and T.B., and again demanded the men leave the area. Meanwhile, others from the Beards’ group called for help from the rafting shuttle stop, and a police officer and ambulance arrived to transport T.B. to Saint Alphonsus hospital in Boise.
T.B. suffered “a large slash mark to the outside of her left leg, near her knee, deep into the muscle, two smaller stab wounds on the side of her knee, and a hand injury from attempting to take the knife away from” Lindstrom, the lawsuit said.
The court document said the plaintiffs filed police reports but faced “delays and stalls” from Boise County officials, before they learned Lindstrom is a Boise County commissioner.
Boise County Sheriff Scott Turner did not respond to a request for comment. None of the men have been charged criminally in connection with the alleged incident.
Boise County Prosecutor Alex Sosa told the Idaho Statesman in an email that the sheriff’s office “has not completed the investigation due to heavy caseloads,” and said his office will refer any cases to another county due to conflict of interest.
Terri R. Pickens, attorney for the Beards, told the Statesman in a statement that “because of unexplained delays by law enforcement,” her clients had “no choice but to initiate a civil action for recovery of damages.”
“It is unfortunate that an elected official felt so comfortable engaging in the conduct as alleged (and will be proven) in the complaint,” Pickens said. “We are encouraged that the justice system will work and my clients will prevail, albeit with both physical and emotional scars.”
