A 19-year-old Tennessee man is in jail, charged with beating a man with a plunger, pouring bleach on his wounds, and kidnapping his 3-year-old daughter.
Warrants say police were called to the scene in Knoxville after receiving a call saying that Charles Coffman may have killed someone and abducted his child, WBIR reported. Officers had to force entry to the home and found the victim, stripped naked, in the bathroom amid a strong smell of bleach.
The victim had serious head injuries and was taken to a hospital. The child and the victim’s car were not located, so police put out a BOLO for the vehicle.
Police in Sevierville, about 30 miles east, spotted the vehicle and initiated a traffic stop. Inside, they found Coffman, the child, and a woman. The little girl was taken to East Tennessee Children’s Hospital for an evaluation, and Coffman was arrested.
Coffman told detectives that his mother called him from jail and told him to go pick up the child from the home. He said he and the woman found with him in the stolen car took an Uber to the house, where he got into a fight with the victim, slammed him to the floor, hit him in the face multiple times, and then beat him with the plunger, which he stuffed into the victim’s mouth.
Then, he said, he dragged the victim into the bathroom, stripped him, and poured bleach on him. He admitted taking the victim’s car, saying his mother told him it was OK.
Police asked Coffman to write an apology letter to his badly injured victim, which he did.
The warrants say detectives contacted Coffman’s mother in jail, and she told them she had not spoken with her son, adding that she “did not and would not” let the teen take custody of the child or the victim’s car.
Coffman’s mother and the victim are the legal guardians of the toddler.
The woman found in the car with Coffman and the child told police she heard him on the phone with someone saying he may have killed the victim and “didn’t know if the victim was alive or dead.”
Coffman was charged with attempted second-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, theft, and tampering with evidence. A bond hearing is scheduled for Friday.
