SAN DIEGO -- A parolee who randomly targeted a couple on a Hillcrest street and stabbed them was sentenced Monday to 10 years in state prison, but the judge recommended that the defendant be housed where he can be treated for paranoid schizophrenia.

Jared Jacobson, 32, was convicted Sept. 29 of two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and allegations that he used a knife and caused great bodily injury to Caroline and Donald Stewart on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 4, 2007.

Two days after being found guilty, the defendant withdrew his insanity plea and admitted that he had a prior conviction for assaulting a police officer and was on parole for that offense when he attacked the Stewarts as they walked down the street.

In a letter to Superior Court Judge Melinda Lasater, Caroline Stewart, a psychotherapist, said she and her husband have forgiven their assailant.

"We cannot begin to understand the horrific complex factors the brought Mr. Jacobson to that terrible moment when he assaulted us," she wrote. "I know that from the very moment that the assault occurred, Mr. Jacobson approached us more as a solitary wild animal intent on destruction rather than as a human being who is loved.

"Tragically, not for one moment would any healthy human being desire to trade places with Mr. Jacobson. Donald and I would rather be stabbed than live in the shoes of this desperate man."

Ironically, the couple's 27-year-old adopted son has suffered from drug addiction and psychiatric illness for more than a decade, Caroline Stewart told the judge.

In addition, the Stewarts' 17-year-old disabled son is notably sadder and quieter since his parents were attacked, Caroline Stewart wrote.

She urged Lasater to sentence Jacobson to a "significant" amount of time in prison, but also to get him some help.

"... We most sincerely hope that Mr. Jacobson, despite his withdrawal of his insanity defense, have the opportunity to receive psychiatric and drug treatment behind bars, knowing in our heart of hearts that a healthy man would not have assaulted perfect strangers," the victim wrote.

In her opening statement at trial, Deputy District Attorney Melissa Vasel said Jacobson came up behind the couple while they were walking and stabbed them, then sat on the curb and watched them bleed.

"They never even saw it coming," Vasel said.

After his arrest, Jacobson told police, "It's so easy to shank people"; "That was (expletive) fun"; and "It (the knife) went in like butter," Vasel told the jury.

The defendant's attorney, Troy Britt, told the jury that his client is schizophrenic and did not intend to hurt anyone.

Britt said the mental health system failed Jacobson, who first saw a psychiatrist when he was 14 1/2 and later traveled from Hawaii to New York to attempt suicide by jumping off a bridge.

On Jan. 31, 2007, Jacobson left a group mental health session because he thought people were talking about him and later tried to commit suicide again, his attorney said.

A week before the Stewarts were stabbed, Jacobson was taken to a county mental health facility with slash marks on his arm, and the next day a psychiatrist diagnosed him as a chronic paranoid schizophrenic, Britt said.

Jacobson went back to County Mental Health for three days, and his psychiatrist tried to get him committed because he knew was going to do something violent, Britt told the jury.

The defendant was released Feb. 2, two days before the attack on the Stewarts, Britt said.