Accused of randomly walloping a woman on the head with a golf club, a Fremont County man faces up to 20 years in federal prison.
U.S. Assistant Attorney Michael Elmore opened a case Wednesday against Aaron Clair Bigknife, 57, with one charge of assaulting someone with a deadly weapon and another of causing serious bodily injury through assault.
The evidentiary affidavit in the case, authored by FBI Special Agent Scott Jensen, describes a friendly gathering gone suddenly wrong.
Bigknife told an agent in his own interview Aug. 28 that the night before, a woman gave him a ride from his own home to hers on Rose Lane in Fort Washakie.
Bigknife had started drinking at his own home and he kept drinking at the woman’s home, the affidavit says.
He remembered seeing another female, his alleged victim, at the residence and possibly getting a hug from her.
But that’s about all he remembers, the affidavit indicates.
“The next thing Aaron Clair Bigknife remembered was standing near the tree line outside (the residence) and being arrested by police,” says the document.
A Stunning Blow
The other women in the home gave a different account.
The alleged victim remembered hanging out at the home before and after dark that evening as she, the hostess and another woman played dice together, according to the affidavit.
“Without warning (she) was struck in the head,” the affidavit relates. “She heard the others say, ‘What the f*** was that for?’”
But she was stunned and couldn’t comprehend what had happened, the affidavit says.
Blood streamed down her face. She turned and watched the two other women rush to get a golf club away from Bigknife, says the affidavit, adding that before the blow she didn’t even know he’d been standing behind her.
The other two women shoved Bigknife out the door, the affidavit says.
The alleged victim got dizzy and struggled to walk to the ambulance when it arrived.
Probably Won’t Be Disfigured
At the SageWest Health Care emergency room in Lander, the woman’s doctor diagnosed her with a concussion and identified two spots on her head requiring stitches.
There were splits on the flesh of her face that would scar, the doctor said, but would likely heal reasonably well and not lead to protracted disfigurement, the affidavit says.
“The concussion can have long-term consequences,” Jensen related in the document, “and any concussion represents some degree of brain damage and does amount to serious bodily injury.”
Why So Angry?
The hostess also spoke to an FBI agent Aug. 28. She said they were playing cards when “out of nowhere” Bigknife came up behind the victim and hit her in the head with a full swing of a golf club.
“He did not say anything even after (she) yelled at him,” says the affidavit.
The hostess also described shooing Bigknife out of the house with the other guest, “before he was able to strike (the victim) a second time.”
The woman told the FBI that earlier in the evening, Bigknife seemed to be angry about something, but she didn’t know what he was angry about.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
