Background: The Shell gas station in Savannah, Georgia, where police responded on Feb. 3 (Google Maps). Inset: Twan Maurice Byrd (Chatham County Sheriff’s Office).
A Georgia man faces several felony charges after prosecutors said he stole his wife’s SUV then hit her with it several times.
Twan Maurice Byrd, whose age was not publicly available, was indicted on Wednesday after he was arrested in February following an incident involving his wife. According to a bill of indictment reviewed by Law&Crime, Byrd stole the Chevy Equinox that belonged to his wife on Feb. 3. An arrest report obtained by The Georgia Gazette, a local news outlet, stated that witnesses saw Byrd hit his wife with the SUV “multiple times” and “attempted to run her over on the curb.”
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The arrest report stated that other witnesses saw Byrd back over her before she ran into a nearby car wash. He then allegedly hit her again, leaving the car and his seriously injured wife in the car wash as he fled on foot.
According to the bill of indictment, Byrd not only hit his wife with her own SUV, he also strangled her and struck her in the face. Police said in their arrest report that they found Byrd’s wife “bleeding heavily from her nose and mouth” and suffering from a broken leg. She was able to identify her husband as her attacker before she was taken to the hospital.
Prosecutors said that the injuries to the woman’s right leg were “seriously disfiguring.”
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In the bill of indictment, prosecutors accused Byrd of trying to prevent his wife from testifying against him in their divorce proceedings in Chatham County’s Superior Court. They alleged that he unlawfully offered to give her whatever she wanted in exchange for her not testifying. Byrd was also accused by prosecutors of stalking his wife after he allegedly made “harassing and intimidating” phone calls to her.
Byrd was charged with hijacking a motor vehicle, criminal attempt to commit a felony (murder), kidnapping, influencing a witness, stalking, obstruction of an officer and three counts of aggravated battery. He remains in custody at Chatham County Jail where he is being held without bond.
He is scheduled to be arraigned in court on Oct. 1.
