A suspect has been jailed after a violent attack sent his girlfriend to the hospital.
Michael Joseph Whitaker, 40 of Ocala, was arrested on charges of battery and false imprisonment Wednesday night after his girlfriend was found “extremely distraught” with her shirt torn and a bloody lip shortly before 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Sunoco station at the intersection of U.S. 301 and State Road 44, according to an arrest report from the Wildwood Police Department.
She said that her boyfriend, 40-year-old Michael Joseph Whitaker of Ocala, had punched her in the head and she was suffering “extreme head pain.” An ambulance crew transported her to a local hospital.
Whitaker, who had “purple and red knuckles and blood splatter across his white shirt,” was captured on surveillance video roughing up the woman and shoving her into a vehicle.
Whitaker was taken into custody and booked at the Sumter County Detention Center where he was initially held without bond.
