A Summerfield woman found herself behind bars Sunday night after a nasty battle with a man following a day of drinking and fishing.
The victim told a Marion County sheriff’s deputy that he and 33-year-old Jessica Lee Starling had been driving home from the Hog Valley area on Saturday when she allegedly punched him in the face, causing his lip to swell. The victim said they were traveling on 160th Avenue heading toward Hwy. 316 when the violent altercation erupted, so he made Starling get out of the vehicle and walk home, a sheriff’s office report states.
The man said he later saw Starling at their residence and an argument broke out. He claimed that Starling “started breaking items throughout the household,” so he tried to leave before another altercation broke out, the report says.
But the man claimed that Starling pushed him as he walked out the front door and he fell to the ground, cutting his hand on broken glass on the front porch. He said he attempted to call 911 from his home phone but Starling “took it from him and broke it.” He said he then left the residence and drove to a friend’s house on NE Hwy. 315 to call 911 again.
The deputy noted that the victim had a cut and a bruise on his lip and swelling on his left arm, which also had “numerous lacerations which would coincide with the physical altercation,” the report says, adding that the victim denied medical treatment.
The deputy also noted in the report that several items were scattered on the floor of the victim’s residence. The front door window also was shattered and a broken white telephone was on the front porch, the report says.
The victim told the deputy that he didn’t know why he was attacked in his vehicle because “it happened so fast.” He added that Starling took their personal vehicle and headed toward Ocala and the deputy noted that he wasn’t able to locate her on Saturday night.
The deputy was able to make contact with Starling on Sunday via telephone and she provided him with her address. He then responded to the residence in the 600 block of NE 25th Avenue.
Starling told the deputy that she was choked first but he noted that there were no marks on her neck. She also claimed to have several marks on her body but the only one the deputy saw was an “old scar” on the back of her leg covered by a Band-Aid, the report says.
Starling, who has a prior battery conviction from May 2007, was then taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail. She was charged with domestic battery (second or subsequent offense) and obstructing justice. She is being held on no bond and is due in court on June 18 at 9 a.m. to answer to the charges.
Starling is no stranger to the Marion County legal system, having been held in the jail 11 times since October 2006. During those arrests, she’s faced a multitude of charges – some more than once – including domestic battery, grand theft, a warrant for domestic battery, driving with license suspended or revoked, a bench warrant for failure to appear in court on a charge of possession of marijuana not more than 20 grams, possession of drug paraphernalia, violating her probation on a charge of providing false information to a pawn broker, retail fraud, introducing contraband into a detention facility, dealing in stolen property, falsification of ownership to a pawn broker and hit-and-run with serious bodily injury.
