Thomas Neal Williams Arrested: An East Tennessee man has been charged with using a blowtorch on his girlfriend and barricading the door of their home to trap her inside.
The Carter County Sheriff’s Office said they received a domestic violence call on Tuesday and found a woman who said her boyfriend had been abusing her for months and had held her “against her will to leave the residence by using objects to barricade the front door,” the Elizabethton Star reports.
Deputies noticed that the woman’s hands were “red, swollen with several abrasions,” and when she raised her sleeves they noted “several burn marks and lacerations.”
“[She] stated the burn marks were caused by a blow torch [he] had burned her with,” the police report said. “[She] also displayed several bruises and lacerations on both sides of her legs and on her back.”
Thomas Neal Williams Arrested: Tennessee Man Traps Girlfriend Inside Home, Burns Her With Blow Torch
The woman identified the boyfriend as Thomas Neal Williams, and as deputies were talking with her, Williams came out of the house, got into a car, and drove away. The deputies arrested him at a traffic stop a half mile away.
The woman told the deputies that Williams used weather stripping and a weight bench to barricade the front door. The deputies “observed screw holes in the wall and door of the residence consistent with the weather stripping being used as a locking mechanism and abrasion damage to the door consistent with the weight bench bar being propped up against it.”
Williams, 30, has been charged with aggravated assault as domestic violence and false imprisonment. He’s being held on a $20,000 bond, according to jail records.
Carter Co. man accused of trapping girlfriend in home, burning her
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — Authorities say they put a Carter County man behind bars and pressed multiple charges against him after responding to a Tuesday night domestic disturbance call and finding a visibly injured woman.
Deputies who were dispatched to a home at the 130 block of Elizabeth Ann Drive found a woman at an intersection near Sarah Annie Drive, according to a report from the Carter County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO).
The woman told the two responding officers that her boyfriend, identified as Thomas Neal Williams, had been physically assaulting her over the course of the last seven months and “was holding her against her will to leave the residence by using objects to barricade the front door of her residence,” the report states.
“I observed her hands to be red, swollen with several abrasions,” a narrative penned by a responding deputy reads. “…I observed several burn marks and lacerations. [The woman] stated the burn marks were caused by a blow torch [Williams] had burned her with. [The woman] also displayed several bruises and lacerations on both sides of her legs and on her back…”
As the deputies spoke with the woman near the intersection, they reportedly noticed Williams get into a car at the residence and leave. Officers conducted a traffic stop about half a mile away at the 1800 block of Powder Branch Road and ordered Williams to exit the vehicle, to which he reportedly complied.
The narrative states that officers returned to the residence and found a piece of metal weather stripping and a weight bench bar that the woman said had been used to barricade her front door.
The woman told the two responding officers that her boyfriend, identified as Thomas Neal Williams, had been physically assaulting her over the course of the last seven months and "was holding her against her will."https://t.co/m59fobWq7Y
— WJHL (@WJHL11) September 21, 2022
“Lt. Norman and I observed screw holes in the wall and door of the residence consistent with the weather stripping being used as a locking mechanism and abrasion damage to the door consistent with the weight bench bar being propped up against it,” the narrative read.
Investigators took the weather stripping and weight bench bar for evidence and charged Williams with aggravated assault as domestic violence and false imprisonment. No further details — such as upcoming court hearings — have been released at this time.
