Yellowstone National Park authorities have arrested a man on suspicion of strangling and beating his girlfriend for an hour in a worker dorm within the park after the pair had been dating for three weeks.
The beating stemmed from the woman staying at the pub too long for his liking, case documents allege.
Anthony Flores faces up to 16 years in prison and millions of dollars in fines if convicted of all three federal charges of domestic violence (maximum five years prison), assault by strangulation (10 years) and simple assault (up to one year).
Flores' federal case file does not list an age or state of origin for him.
First, The Pub
U.S. Park Ranger Joe Stuart heard from the park’s dispatch center at about 1:59 a.m. Wednesday that a man living in the Old Faithful Xanterra Bitterroot dorm was repeatedly slamming a woman’s head onto the floor while he held her down under the sink, according to an evidentiary affidavit filed with the court Thursday.
Xanterra is a private resort-management company that houses employees in Yellowstone.
Stuart met with the woman, who had fled to a neighboring dorm room.
She and Flores were dating, she said, later telling another park agent that they’d been going out for three weeks and had moved in together after one day of dating.
The woman told Stuart that she thought Flores was jealous that she worked with male coworkers, and he seemed upset when she got home for work.
So she decided to go out to the Old Faithful pub.
Flores showed up at the pub, agitated, and she went home to the dorm room with him, the woman said in her follow-up interview.
She broke up with him in the bedroom and asked him to leave, she said, adding that his demeanor turned “scary.”
Flores pinned her to the bed and trapped her arms against it, covered her mouth with one hand and pinned her chest against the bed with his forearm, the affidavit alleges from her interview. He’d cover her mouth intermittently when she tried to scream, and she hyperventilated through her nostrils and tried to bite his fingers.
She wrestled him, trying to escape for about 40 minutes in the bedroom, the affidavit claims.
Running Water
When she tried to get out, Flores blocked the lone exit door. Then he grabbed her in a bear hug and kept her inside, saying it was not time for her to leave yet, the affidavit says.
Then he carried her into the bathroom, shut the door and turned on the bathtub faucet, the affidavit alleges. She told investigators she thought she wouldn’t be leaving that bathroom.
As the woman lay on the bathroom floor, Flores grabbed her face with his hand, covered her mouth and slammed her head against the bathroom floor repeatedly, she recounted.
When Flores took breaks during which he cried and “slobbered,” the affidavit says, the woman struggled to get her senses back together and begged him to turn off the water and let her leave.
But he wouldn’t, according to the affidavit. Flores allegedly took the woman’s phone and tried to call his own mother several times.
Escape
The woman crawled under the bathroom sink and clung to the plumbing to stay away from the bathtub because she worried he was going to waterboard her, the woman said.
After about 20 minutes, she was able to leave the bathroom and get her phone back from him. She grabbed her keys and left the room, went to a nearby dorm room and reported the alleged assault.
Stuart and Arrah La Bolle, the park ranger who conducted the woman’s follow-up interview, documented the woman’s injuries. Those allegedly include:
Scrapes on her cheeks and chin
Abrasions inside her mouth
Broken blood vessels in her left eye
Scratch marks on her back
A contusion on her right thigh
A golf ball-sized bump on the back of her head
Pain on both sides of her jawbone
General soreness to her arms and her entire body
Fresh bruising around her clavicle
Fresh bruising to her neck on both sides
Playing Pool With Men And Women
Flores told a slightly different story to Jacob Olson, National Park Service special agent, during an interview.
His girlfriend said she was going to the bar for an hour to have one drink, he said. After three hours he got worried and sent her multiple texts and calls, with no response.
He went to the bar to find her and discovered her playing pool with two women and two men.
Flores described vacillating between locations.
He left the pub, went back to the pub to tell her he was angry she’d gone so long, then went back to his room.
The woman came back to the room and went to bed with him.
He told her their relationship wasn’t going to work out, Flores recalled.
She went from being calm to sad and crying. He held her; she asked him to leave her alone and quit holding her – but he kept holding her, Flores allegedly told Olsen.
The woman fled to the bathroom and appeared scared. She crouched under the sink to hide from Flores, the affidavit relates, and he grew agitated.
“At some point during that interaction (the woman) hit her head on either the floor or the wall,” the affidavit recounts from Flores’ interview. Then she went to a friend’s room.
‘Tiny Little Head’
Flores said the fingernail marks on the woman’s face were probably from his hands, the affidavit says. He was holding his hands over her mouth to keep her quiet while she was screaming. He remembered straddling her while she was under the sink, wrapping her with his arms and putting his hands over her face while she shivered and cried, says the document.
But he denied bashing her head into the floor.
He said after she hit her own head on the floor he was concerned for her because she has a “tiny little head,” the affidavit says.
Flores faces federal charges because Yellowstone National Park is in federal jurisdiction.
Contact Clair McFarland at Clair@CowboyStateDaily.com
