An 86-year-old Villager was arrested after an attack on his wife and threats that he would kill her.
Sumter County sheriff’s deputies were called shortly before 7 p.m. Friday to the home of Daniel Zehnal in the Village of Santo Domingo. His wife said Zehnal, who relies on a cane, had fallen in his room. She attempted to help him up, but he refused her assistance.
Zehnal eventually got up on his own and confronted his wife in the kitchen. He had suffered an injury in the fall and deliberately wiped his blood from that injury on his wife “intentionally to upset her,” according to the arrest report. He knocked a phone from her hand and used his cane to push it under a table so she could not reach it.
When deputies arrived at the home, they found Zehnal seated on a chair in his room. He told them he was not going to jail. Because of his reliance on his cane, deputies wanted to handcuff him with his hands in front, rather than behind him. However, Zehnal refused to cooperate and injured his arms, which began to bleed. He was loaded onto a stretcher and taken to a local hospital for treatment. While he was being treated, he told medical personnel that he would kill his wife. When a nurse told Zehnal “that was not right,” he threatened her with physical injury.
Zehnal had been arrested in January 2020 after his wife made a frantic call to 911. He was arrested later than same year after violating a conditional release.
He was booked without bond at the Sumer County Detention Center on a felony charge of battery on a person over the age of 65 and a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest.
