Head injury leads to aggravated assault charge
Published 9:20 am Thursday, July 17, 2014
A city man faces a felony charge after a second man, treated for an apparent head injury, told police he had been assaulted at a local apartment complex.
Lee Matthew Wolfe, 27, 1270 Bluefield Ave., was arrested Tuesday by Elizabethton Police Department Officer James Deese on a warrant charging him with aggravated assault.
According to EPD Officer Kenneth Lowe, police were dispatched to a location on Siam Road shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday on a report of a fight that had already occurred. Upon his arrival at the scene, Lowe said he found a white male who had a large laceration to his forehead that was bleeding profusely, as well as “multiple contusions to his head/face.”
The injured man told officers he, his wife and his stepson had driven to an apartment on Bluefield Avenue to pick up a friend where he was assaulted.
According to his statement, when he arrived at the apartment, Wolfe told him to get him a pack of cigarettes and also told him he wanted to sleep in his van that night. The man refused both of Wolfe’s requests.
It was after that refusal, he told the officer, that Wolfe began assaulting him. Lowe’s report also indicates that other witnesses corroborated that claim.
“(The complainant) stated Mr. Wolfe repeatedly ‘punched’ him in the head,” Lowe said. “While speaking with (the complainant), he began vomiting profusely, which is consistent with a head injury.”
The man was transported by the Carter County Rescue Squad to Sycamore Shoals Hospital for treatment. According to a report, he told EPD Capt. Anthony Buck he had been “advised by medical staff he had suffered a skull fracture and that he was waiting to see a neurological surgeon for possible further treatment.”
Officers immediately started searching for Wolfe after the report was filed, but were unsuccessful at that time. He was later located, arrested and charged with aggravated assault, and was transported to the Carter County Detention Center, where he is being held on a $5,000 bond.