A Moorcroft, Wyoming, man made it all the way to Nebraska after his wife stabbed him for beating her nearly to death, according to court documents and media reports.
Michael Hammond Jr., 42, showed up with a stab wound at Kimball Health Services in Kimball County, Nebraska, 1011 Now News reported Sunday.
A family member reportedly brought Hammond to the Nebraska hospital and was also arrested, the story says, adding that the Kimball County Sheriff’s Office has been working with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI).
But First, The Alleged Beating
Hammond was “tipsy” while driving home from his job in Gillette, Wyoming, on Wednesday to the Moorcroft home he shares with his new wife, whom he married in October, according to an evidentiary affidavit filed Friday in Sundance Circuit Court.
He wanted to talk to his wife about an argument he’d had with her son, the wife later told investigators. But she told him she didn’t want to talk about it.
She went out to the porch to smoke a cigarette around 6:30 that evening, when Hammond approached, knocked the cigarette out of her hand and started beating her with a rake, the affidavit relates from the wife’s law enforcement interviews.
Later inside, he allegedly threw her across a room then started kicking her crotch and face while spitting on her as she lay on the floor, then choked her.
“I can’t breathe,” she croaked, according to the affidavit. “Stop, you’re going to kill me.”
“OK, I’m going to kill you,” Hammond reportedly answered. He then kept beating her and prevented her from using her phone to call for help, the document says.
The affidavit notes that Hammond weighs about 80 pounds more than his wife.
The wife, whom police found covered in bruises and blood when they arrived later, said Hammond smacked her in the back with a chair and beat her for hours, including by slamming her face into the floors and walls of the house.
The affidavit alleges that every time she tried to get away he prevented her from leaving.
Please, Water
The wife begged for a break and said she needed water, reportedly.
In response, Hammond held her down, face-up over the sink and poured water down her throat so that she couldn’t breathe, the wife told investigators.
She groped for a kitchen knife and stabbed Hammond in the neck, she said.
“He was suffocating me and I couldn’t even f***ing breathe, and I told him please let me go,” she told police. “We had been fighting for three f***ing hours.”
After Hammond’s wife stabbed him, he reportedly fled in a dark green 2013 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Wyoming police put out notices to the Sundance, Campbell County and Spearfish hospitals to be on the lookout for a man with a stab wound.
So I Stabbed Him
When deputies arrived at Hammond’s home they found his wife on the front porch, moaning and in intense pain. She’d later tell DCI the pain was a “15” on a 0-10 pain scale.
Her face was extremely swollen and bruised, as was her nose; she had dried blood around both nostrils; both eyes were bruised, and dried blood smeared her face and ears, the affidavit says. Her red blouse and grey sweatpants were both blood-soaked, reportedly. And she was barefoot.
Her voice sounded muffled, as if her swollen mouth stifled her voice, the affidavit says, adding that her neck bore large red marks and swelling.
One investigator followed Hammond into the house, retracing a fresh trail of blood from the driveway outside her yard, over her porch and into the front door, the document says. The inside of the door was covered with blood. Chairs and objects were overturned and strewn about. The kitchen contained a large pool of blood, the affidavit says.
The investigator found torn clumps of hair on the kitchen counter, sink and floor, and dried blood smeared on the kitchen cabinets and over the stove, allegedly.
The affidavit says the investigator found a large serrated knife in the far corner of the kitchen with obvious blood trail marks on the blade and a large amount of dried blood on the handle.
Wherever Hammond was, he may be “severely injured,” the investigator told the other deputies present.
Ping
At 10:58 that night, dispatch told agents Hammond’s phone could not be traced.
Forty minutes after midnight, dispatch said they’d obtained a recording of Hammond telling the wife’s father that he would “f***ing kill” him, the affidavit says.
And by 3 a.m., Hammond’s phone pinged in the Wheatland, Wyoming, area – 120 miles northwest of the Nebraska county where Hammond ultimately surfaced.
The Charges
An arrest warrant issued for Hammond on Friday lists four felony charges. Those are:
Strangulation of a household member, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Aggravated assault, also punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Confinement, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Attempted second-degree murder, punishable by between 20 years and life in prison.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
