Original article no longer available
The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
By Dionne Waugh
May 16, 2007
83-year-old allegedly depressed, on meds
An 83-year-old man Woodburn man has been charged with hitting his wife in the head with a pipe last summer.
Prosecutors on Monday filed a charge of battery against Johnce Mullins Jr.
Mullins called officers to his home July 22, telling dispatchers he had killed his wife and was going to kill himself, according to police and court records. He told them they would find him down by the river.
Mullins told police he struck his wife in the head with a pipe wrench while she was sleeping in an attempt to kill her.
When police arrived, they found Mullins’ wife, Winnie R. Mullins, alive and bleeding profusely from the head. She told officers that her husband was ill, severely depressed and on medication. She said that’s why he hit her, according to police reports.
Officers found Johnce Mullins on his knees, face down in the creek behind his house. He had a small kitchen knife in his hand but dropped it when officers ordered him to do so.
Both husband and wife were taken to the hospital for treatment.
Mullins told police during the arrest and at the hospital that he intended to kill his wife and himself. Later, he told police he tried to kill his wife the week before by driving head-on into a tractor-trailer rig.
Prosecutors declined to say Monday why Mullins was charged now, almost a year after the alleged attack.
Mullins was being held Monday in the Allen County Lockup in lieu of $10,000 bail.
dwaugh@jg.net