A Summerfield woman was arrested on a domestic battery charge despite her alleged victim first claiming he gave himself a black eye and bloody nose by hitting himself.
Melissa Hitchcock-White, 29, was charged with domestic battery (second or subsequent offense) after the incident, which happened the evening of March 16. A criminal records search revealed Hitchcock-White, a self-employed “jill of all trades,” has two prior battery arrests and was convicted of one in Lake County in January 2016.
A Marion County sheriff’s deputy responding to a neighbor’s disturbance call observed the victim had a black left eye with dark apparent bruising below and around it, and fresh blood emitting from his left nostril. The deputy also observed blood on the victim’s right toe and on his shirttail, according to the sheriff’s office report.
The victim was not truthful at first and refused to tell the deputy what happened. He said numerous times he didn’t want Hitchcock-White to go to jail and that he punched himself in the eye. He said Hitchcock-White never struck him, the report said.
Hitchcock-White was more willing to speak. She said she and the victim got into an argument over finances and the victim lightly shoved her with his fingertips. Hitchcock-White said the victim then grabbed her left arm, causing it to bruise. The deputy observed a bruise near the top of Hitchcock-White’s left elbow, according to the report.
Hitchcock-White said the dog got involved, and the victim stuck the dog several times, causing it to bleed. The deputy observed a blood spot on the dog’s back. Hitchcock-White said she broke away from the victim, but he followed her and struck her in the jaw several times. She said she then grabbed ahold of the victim and “kneed” him in his face with her right knee, causing his facial injuries. Hitchcock-White said the victim also pulled her hair several times during the altercation, the report said.
The deputy observed two small, slight bruises on Hitchcock-White’s right kneecap, consistent with her “kneeing” the victim. However, the injury on her face, which was very dark and somewhat shiny, had several vertical lines about three-quarters of an inch long, which was not consistent with her allegations of being punched. The deputy also did not observe an injury to the dog’s back, which only had a spot of blood, according to the report.
After much counseling, the victim agreed to tell his side of the story. He said he believes Hitchcock-White possibly suffers from sort of mental illness and that she became very enraged. The victim said during the argument, Hitchcock-White took her cell phone and purposely struck herself in her own face several times. He said that was the reason for the vertical lines in Hitchcock-White’s injury, the report said.
The victim said Hitchcock-White then grabbed him by his hair (which was long), pulled his head down by his hair and struck him in the nose and eye with her knee. The victim said the blood on the dog came from his nose after he was kneed. The deputy asked the victim to take out his ponytail and run his hand through his hair and he pulled out several large clumps of hair from his head, according to the report.
Hitchcock-White was determined to be the primary aggressor and placed under arrest. She was taken to the Marion County Jail, where she’s being held on $10,000 bond. She’s due to appear in Marion County Court on April 21.