EX-WIFE HOG-TIES FLORIDA MAN, DRAGS HIM BEHIND TRUCK: POLICE

ReutersJanuary 11, 2013, 3:52 am

By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A Florida man's ex-wife used a stun gun on him, tied him to a truck bumper and dragged him for half a mile before he escaped, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office reported.

Robert Hall, 54, remained in the surgical intensive care unit on Thursday at Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach, where he was being treated for a broken pelvis, broken facial bones and bleeding in his brain, according to the sheriff's office.

The attack took place in a rural part of New Smyrna Beach, a popular Florida resort town, where Hall typically stayed at the home of his ex-wife, Jeanette Morris, 61, while she was away working as a truck driver.

Morris suspected that Hall had allowed his girlfriend in the house and arranged for a deputy to escort her when she returned to her home Tuesday night in order to avoid a confrontation, the sheriff's report said. The deputy left the house after Morris told him she would spend the night at her brother's house.

Instead, Morris and her brother, Harold Anderson, 63, and a woman named Joan Hobart, 46, began drinking vodka with Hall. The three turned on him, shocked him three times with a stun gun, punched him in the face and put a gun to his head, the sheriff's report said.

They tied Hall's hands behind his back then tied his ankles together and attached the rope to the bumper of a pickup truck and dragged him for half a mile, the report said. After the truck stopped, the three tossed Hall into the truck bed, cut off some of his hair and talked about scalping him and looking for a hole to bury him, according to the report.

As the truck took off again, Hall leaped out and ran to a house for help, the report said.

Morris, Anderson and Hobart are each charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, false imprisonment, aggravated battery and aggravated assault.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and David Gregorio)