A Summerfield man found himself behind bars Wednesday – three days after he was reported for battering his lady friend at a busy Ocala intersection.
A Marion County sheriff’s deputy responded to the Taco Bell at 7610 S.E. Maricamp Rd. on Sunday, where an eyewitness reporting seeing a man, later identified as 38-year-old Joshua Matthew Stroud, attacking a woman in a white Ford pickup truck at the intersection of E. Silver Springs Boulevard and S.E. 58th Avenue. The eyewitness said the woman exited the vehicle and yelled for help before getting back inside the pickup, the report says.
The eyewitness said she approached the truck and saw Stroud strike the woman in the face several times before heading south on S.E. 58th Avenue. She said she called law enforcement for help and relayed the tag number on the truck.
A computer checked revealed the pickup belonged to a man who said he let his daughter use the truck to go out with a juvenile and Stroud. While deputies were speaking with owner, they received another call from a woman who was walking south on Baseline Road and claimed she had been battered by a man who had taken her vehicle, the report says.
Deputies responded to the area and made contact with the woman, who claimed that she was driving home in her father’s white 2010 Ford F-150 pickup with Stroud when he became upset and started to strike her while they were a stoplight. She said she continued to drive and Stroud grabbed her neck and started choking her, the report says, adding that the victim couldn’t remember if she could breathe or not but said her neck was hurting.
The woman said she fought back against Stroud until she was able to stop the pickup and get out to get away from him. She said he then got into the driver’s seat and left her and someone who’s identity was redacted from the report on the side of the road.
The woman, who had a large red mark on her neck and small bruises on her forearms and face, said Stroud isn’t allowed to drive the vehicle because it belongs to her father. While deputies were speaking with her, she received a call from Stroud telling her the pickup would be in the parking of the Holiday Inn Express at 5360 E. Silver Springs Blvd. Deputies responded to the hotel and recovered the vehicle, the report says.
Deputies attempted to contact Stroud by telephone and at his residence at 16812 S.E. 19th Court in Summerfield. He eventually was taken in custody and transported to the Marion County Jail, where he was charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle and committing domestic violence by strangulation. He was being held on $7,500 bond and is due in court Jan. 12 at 9 a.m., court records show.
