A woman is “lucky to be alive,” after she was beaten for more than eight hours in a car by a man with whom she had been romantically involved.
Police booked Timothy James Peterson, 35, of West Jordan, into the Salt Lake County jail Saturday on suspicion of holding the woman against her will and assaulting her.
About 3:15 a.m. on Oct. 1, an officer saw a vehicle — which was registered to Peterson and his family — in a parking lot of Wardel Regional Park, about 14000 South and 2700 West in Bluffdale, after the park was closed, according to a probable cause statement filed with the Salt Lake County jail.
The officer pulled up to the passenger side of the car, and shined his flood lights on the vehicle. He saw a blanket draped over the rear passenger door, and a man, later identified as Peterson, was standing in the door, “rocking back and forth as though he was punching something,” according to the jail document.
The officer called out to the man, and Peterson turned around to face the officer. At the same time, a woman fled out the driver side door and “ran around to the front of the vehicle screaming for help.”
The woman ran to the patrol vehicle’s front passenger door and “frantically attempted to get in.” The officer noticed the woman’s face appeared disfigured and blood was “running down her face from her nose, eyes and mouth.” Her clothing was also “saturated” with blood and her arms and legs were “covered in blood,” the jail document states.
The officer told the woman to stay by his vehicle while he detained Peterson, but Peterson started walking away. The officer told the man to stop, and he began running north through the park. After pursuing Peterson on foot, the officer lost sight of him, and the officer returned to his patrol vehicle.
The officer requested medical personnel from dispatch and gave them Peterson’s description. At the scene, police found Peterson’s ID, and the woman who’d been beaten confirmed he was her attacker, the jail document states.
She said that the two had once been married by a pastor, but their marriage had never been filed in court. At one time they lived together, but had since separated.
She’d been held and beaten “all day long,” the woman told officers. When she had tried to escape, Peterson had forced her back in the vehicle, the document says.
The woman repeatedly told the officer that her head hurt and was taken to the Riverton Hospital in critical condition.
The woman was “lucky to be alive,” a doctor in the emergency room said. Her bottom lip was split, and her teeth were “jagged and broken.” Both will need reconstructive surgery, according to the jail document.
She suffered “severe” bruising to her face, limbs and torso, as well as to her neck and throat as a result of being choked. “The bruising on her arms is so severe the physician suspected she may have broken bones,” the document says.
Both of her ears had been “cut/separated” from her head, and she was bleeding from the inside of her ears. Her head was also deformed from swelling around her skull, and her nose was broken.
Police determined the woman had been detained and assaulted in the vehicle for more than eight hours, the jail document states.
Peterson‘s criminal history includes a violation of a protective order. He also has faced additional protective-order violations and various assault charges, but was acquitted in those cases.
Last year, he was acquitted by a 3rd District Court jury of allegedly assaulting an officer during a 2014 incident when he showed officers a fake gun and was shot twice and injured by police.
In that event, a district attorney’s report revealed that Peterson had called and sent texts to his estranged wife, in violation of a protective order, then showed up at her house but left before police arrived.
Peterson posted on his Facebook page that he was upset at the woman for calling police. He also posted threats to shoot officers if they came after him and said it did not matter if “I get shot by the cops.”
When officers located Peterson, he pulled out an object that looked like a handgun, pointed it at police, and an officer shot him until he went to the ground. Later, investigators determined Peterson had brandished a metal bar that was bent in the shape of a handgun, which had a red laser pointer taped to the “barrel.”
He is being held in lieu of $100,000 bail in the new case. Formal charges had not been filed as of Monday.