Wanda Palmer, now 51, was found unconscious in June 2020 “with a serious head injury.”
Foto:
Jackson County WV Sheriff_s Department / Cortesía
A West Virginia woman woke up from a coma after two years and identified her brother as the attacker who had beaten her unconscious. Days later he was arrested by the authorities.
Wanda Palmer, now 51, was found unconscious “with a serious head injury” in June 2020 at her home in Ravenswood, West Virginia, about 40 miles from Charleston.
Jackson County Sheriff Ross Mellinger said he “wouldn’t have bet a dime” on Palmer’s life after neighbors found her in an “upright position” on her couch, according to WCHS.
Melliger said when police arrived they thought she was dead, but minutes later they realized she was still alive and breathing heavily.
“Massive amounts of head trauma, consistent with some type of machete or ax injury,” the sheriff said. Authorities never found the gun, he added.
A witness reportedly saw the victim’s brother on her porch around midnight before he discovered her, Mellinger said. There were no phone records, surveillance videos or eyewitnesses outside Palmer’s home.
With potentially fatal injuries, the woman was admitted to a nursing home where she spent the last two years in a vegetative state. Detectives were thorough in finding clues or suspects in Palmer’s condition, but found neither.
However, on June 27, investigators were told that Palmer had woken up and was beginning to speak, according to court documents. The police visited the victim on July 12, and despite suffering brain damage, she was able to answer yes or no questions, but it was enough to arrest his brother.
When questioned about what had happened to her, she assured that it was her brother, Daniel Palmer, who had attacked her.
“The key to everything is in the victim herself and with her unable to communicate, we are left with nothing. Now, two years later and boom, she’s awake and she can tell us exactly what happened,” Mellinger said.
The Sheriff’s Department said they took Daniel Palmer III, 55, into custody last Friday. He is being charged with attempted murder and malicious injury, as police believe he hit her sister with some sort of weapon to the head until she was unconscious. Bail for him was set at $500,000, according to WCHS.
Also read: