An Arizona man faces multiple charges after his girlfriend told police she had escaped from a shed where he’d held her while assaulting her for several days.
Police received a 911 call late in the afternoon on July 2 from a home in the neighborhood where Timothy James Wood, 36, lived, KTVK reported. The woman who called said that Wood, her boyfriend, had locked her into the shed behind the home of his father, keeping her there by tying a tow strap to her ankle, chaining the shed’s double doors, and stacking bricks outside the door.
She told police that Wood beat her when she refused his sexual advances and forced her to wear makeup to cover the injuries on her face. He also used an electrical cord to hit her, she said, and cut her foot with a wood saw.
She further said that he knelt on her neck while threatening to kill her and at one point buried her in a crawl space beneath the shed for two days.
Court documents say she was finally able to escape the shed through a rear access door that he left unlocked. She fled to a neighbor’s home and called 911.
Police who responded to the call noted several visible injuries to her face and other parts of her body, including bite marks. Hospital staff confirmed other injuries, including a broken rib.
Wood was arrested and charged with kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, sexual assault, criminal threat, assault, and aggravated assault.
“She was frantic. She was scared to death that he was going to find her and kill her,” the neighbor where the victim fled told KSAZ. “She had two black eyes, and then she had a cut right in here. She had a bruise on her head. She had a bruise on her leg.”
“You could tell she hadn’t been taken care of, hadn’t showered. She was kind of, you know, dirty and stuff,” the neighbor said.
In court, Wood denied the allegations, claiming the woman “just got out of the loony bin.”
“I don’t know. It’s in Mesa. I guess she has these episodes, and when she has an episode, I’m supposed to call her mom,” he said. I wasn’t home at the time. When I got home, the police were there, and this all just kind of broke out.”
Investigators, however, said they found evidence corroborating the victim’s story, including tow straps and a mattress in the shed. A forensice nurse said the woman’s injuries were consistent with her story, KTVK said.
Wood was ordered held on a $150,000 cash-only bail, KSAZ reported.
