Woman reportedly assaults a man with a hatchet in Hoquiam Thursday morning

Published 11:00 pm Friday, January 5, 2018

A woman who called Grays Harbor 911 and claimed to have located Lindsay Baum attacked a man in his residence in the 100 block of Dekay Road, about five miles north of Hoquiam, early Thursday morning, according to a statement by Steve Shumate, chief criminal deputy with the Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office.

The woman placed her call to dispatch at 5:40 a.m., “yelling that she found Lindsey Baum and was going to kill the person that had her,” said Shumate. “The female then claimed that the person was now dead in his car. Dispatch was able to give a general location of the call as Dekay Road near Hoquiam before the female terminated the call.”

As deputies and Hoquiam Police officers responded, a second call came in just four minutes later from a man at a residence on Dekay Road. The man said a woman with a hatchet had forced her way into his home and was damaging furniture. The residents were able to get the female to leave without any injury to themselves, said Shumate.

“Two Hoquiam officers arrived on scene first and located the female at a residence across the street from the first reporting party,” said Shumate. “The female was still armed with a hatchet, but the Hoquiam officers were able to disarm her prior to detaining her.”

As deputies arrived on scene, the officers located an injured 82-year-old man inside his home near the location where the female had been located.

“The man sustained substantial injures to his head and body from being struck several times by the female with the hatchet,” said Shumate. “While the man did sustain significant injures, they were not believed to be life-threatening. However, it appeared that the man did an exceptional job at trying to fend off the female attacker as she pursued him inside his home. The man was home alone at the time of this attack.”

Aid had arrived on scene and was attending to the elderly victim when the female suspect started to bang her head on the patrol vehicle’s door and cage. Officers removed her from the patrol vehicle to prevent the female from causing harm to herself.

According to Shumate, the female suspect stated to officers that she recently consumed mushrooms. Officers requested a second ambulance as there were concerns the female was experiencing some sort of medical event related to drug intoxication. Shortly thereafter, the female went unconscious, said Shumate. The second aid crew arrived and transported the female to Grays Harbor Community Hospital. She was in critical condition as of early Thursday morning, and deputies were with her at the hospital, said Shumate. The male victim was also taken to the hospital, where as of Thursday afternoon he was in serious condition and in surgery.

“The female suspect, a 29-year-old Hoquiam resident, was well-known to the Hoquiam Police Department,” said Shumate, adding that none of the victims on Dekay Road knew the suspect. “They had recently arrested her on a warrant for Possession of Drug Paraphernalia as well as a separate charge of Criminal Trespass. The female was able to bail out from jail on those charges (Wednesday).”