A Wright, Wyoming, woman is accused of taping a man to a chair at her home and torturing him for three days.
Kimberly Ann Walker, 40, is charged with one count of kidnapping, which is punishable by between 20 years and life in prison and $10,000 in fines if convicted. Walker’s also charged with three counts of aggravated assault on claims that she beat a man with a ball-peen hammer, stabbed him with a scalpel and bit him for three days.
Each count of aggravated assault is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines.
The case rose Thursday to the felony-level in Campbell County District Court.
An evidentiary affidavit by Campbell County Sheriff’s Investigator Heather Monson says someone called in a welfare check on William Herden at 1:21 p.m. on Jan. 2. The caller said Walker “Went off the hook,” and tied Herden to a chair and “nearly beat him to death,” says the document.
Deputies met with Herden and with his roommate. They found Herden bruised and cut with both eyes blackened, Monson wrote.
He told them he went to Walker’s home on Dec. 30 to retrieve a hoodie. He calls Walker “Mom,” the affidavit says.
When he entered her home, she started prodding him with a knife, then tied him to a black desk chair, Monson wrote. She started grilling him about a “special penny,” but he didn’t know where it was, Herden said, adding that she has “mental issues” and will go on rants.
He said Walker started punching, slapping and hitting him with blunt objects, including a ball-peen hammer and .45-caliber handgun, reportedly.
On Dec. 31, a man the affidavit describes as being in a relationship with Walker came to the home and barred Herden from leaving. The man and Walker beat Herden throughout that day and the next, the affidavit alleges.
No charges had surfaced in the public court file against the man these allegations accuse as the accomplice, as of Tuesday.
The affidavit says Walker stabbed Herden in his right shoulder with a scalpel, and that when deputies looked, they did notice a quarter-inch-wide, inch-deep cut on his shoulder.
On New Year’s Day, Walker’s son showed up, punched Herden repeatedly and asked why he got himself into that situation. He then released Herden and escorted him from the home, Monson wrote.
The son also drove Herden home, the affidavit says.
Roommate Said He Saw Him
Herden’s friends confirmed to investigators that they didn’t see him from Dec. 30 to Jan.1.
At one point Herden’s roommate knocked at Walker’s door, and heard loud music, then Walker telling him to go away, the document says. At another friend’s urging, the roommate went back to Walker’s home, the afternoon of Jan. 1.
Herden came to the door, the document says. His face was swollen and red. Herden kept looking to his left, toward the stairwell leading upstairs, and told the roommate to be quiet, says the affidavit.
When the roommate asked Herden if he was OK, he said no, the document says.
Herden said he’d come home soon. The roommate said if he didn’t, he’d be back with more people to get him out, according to the affidavit.
Herden came home at 5 p.m. with ripped jeans, a broken belt, and wearing a ripped shirt that looked like it didn’t belong to him, the roommate later told investigators.
Herden said he’d been taped to a chair and not allowed to leave. He tried to leave at one point but the man who’d been beating him with Walker chased and caught him, then pistol-whipped his head as he crumbled into a fetal position on the floor, the affidavit alleges.
The document says deputies inspected Herden’s coat and found pieces of tape and bearing tape adhesive stuck to it.
Graphic
In an interview with Monson, Herden described the alleged torture in harrowing and desperate terms, saying Walker mocked him. He was pistol-whipped, Herden told the investigators, and at one point was allowed to shower so his bleeding head wounds wouldn’t mess up Walker’s property.
Herden told investigators he couldn’t take the beating anymore. At one point when the pistol lay in front of him, he was tempted to grab it, pull the trigger and “end it,” he told the investigator.
The document says Herden heard Walker and the man discuss putting him in the basement freezer so he couldn’t escape while they went to the store.
Monson found head wounds on the man and lacerations and bruises on his ears, she wrote.
Herden said that Walker told him she’d always fantasized about breaking someone’s finger with a ball-peen hammer, and she told him she could do that if she needed to.
This was to appease her so he could “survive,” he added, according to the affidavit.
Search
Investigators obtained a search warrant for Walker’s home and found fibers matching a certain chair on strips of used tape in the washing machine, the affidavit says.
They also found apparent blood residue on a pronged metal tool; a bloody pillowcase; several ball-peen hammers near a dark red, wheeled chair – and blood by the front door, Monson wrote.
The affidavit theorizes that the blood by the front door was from Herden’s escape attempt and subsequent pistol whipping.
Oh, And This Witness
One witness told investigators that he dropped by Walker’s home Dec. 30 and noticed Herden sitting in a chair while Walker yelled at him about a penny and bit his ears, says the affidavit. He found that odd and he left, Monson added.
The man told investigators that methamphetamine was involved.
Investigators found Walker in her home when they searched it. She had a recent head injury, and numerous injuries to her hands that Monson called consistent with having used them to strike someone.
She was taken to the hospital and later arrested.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
