FORT MILL — It started with someone calling 911 from a home on Epps Road and hanging up and led to a warrant being issued for a resident there on suspicion of assault and battery.
In between was an apparent pocket dial to a deputy that yielded information that could implicate the suspect.
According to a York County Sheriff’s Office report, a deputy went to investigate and on the way, saw a woman “standing in the middle of Epps Road upset and without any shoes.” The deputy interviewed the 36-year-old woman, who told her she had been staying at the home “for several days and everything was fine,” but on March 9, she got into an altercation with another woman who lives there who accused “her of stealing her last bit of cocaine,” the report states.
The woman who had been standing in the road told the deputy that while she was arguing with the woman who accused her of stealing the coke, a man who lives at the house came out of his room “and grabbed her from behind trying to pick her up and throw her out of his house,” the report states. She said the man then dragged her from the house by the arm and that another man who was supposed to take her home left with all of her belongings.
In his report, the deputy wrote that he observed a contusion on the victim’s arm “that began to get worse and a large knot formed.” The woman, a Lancaster resident, complained of abdominal pain and the deputy called EMS. An ambulance took the victim to Springs Memorial Hospital, where X-rays were taken. The X-rays were negative for any broken bones, the report states, but the victim was diagnosed as having a “severely bruised arm” and “a rib contusion and bruising.”
Later, the deputy called a phone number trying to reach the suspect and ended up leaving a message. He said he soon received a call from that number and spoke with the woman who lived at the home and, according to the report, she “stated that nothing happened” at the home even before being asked anything about it. She also told the deputy the argument was over cigarettes and not cocaine, the report states. The deputy wrote in the report that he asked to speak to the suspect, but the woman “would not let me speak to (him).”
After that call ended, that’s when the deputy received another from that number — the apparent accidental dial. The deputy reported hearing the suspect and the woman he spoke to “and they seemed to be arguing over the situation” with her telling him the two needed to get their stories in sync before speaking again with the deputy.
The deputy called that number again later and eventually got the suspect on the phone and “he got very defensive and wouldn’t agree to meet.” Later, an warrant was obtained for the suspect, who, as of March 12, did not appear to be in custody.
Michael Harrison is editor of The Milltown News, a partner with FortMillSun.com in reporting on crime in the Fort Mill area.