At first, the Indiana woman claimed she didn’t know her attacker.
Suffering from a collapsed lung, blunt force trauma to her head and at least 47 stab wounds all over her body from a knife and a pair of scissors, the pregnant woman told an Allen County officer she could not even describe what the man who came into her home one morning in May looked like.
The story changed, though, when the woman’s mother got involved and began speaking to police.
That’s according to newly released Allen Superior Court documents detailing charges against a man accused of trying to kill the mother of his unborn child.
Allen County prosecutors on Tuesday formally charged 36-year-old Daniel J. Rodgers-Conwell, Jr., with attempted murder, domestic battery resulting in serious bodily injury and domestic battery with bodily injury to a pregnant woman.
A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Rodgers-Conwell, but court records suggest he’s being held elsewhere out of state and has yet to be booked into Allen County Jail.
According to court documents, police were called to a local hospital on May 25 where they spoke with a woman suffering from severe injuries.
The woman, who was 10-weeks pregnant at the time, only said she did not know who attacked her.
Hospital staff told police the woman suffered a punctured lung from a stab wound to her chest, lacerations to the front and back of her head, her arms and right knee, according to court documents.
“Attending nurses advised they could not give the affiant a condition on the unborn baby as they needed to put a chest tube in the victim for her collapsed lung prior to scheduling an ultra sound for the baby,” an officer wrote in court documents. “Hospital staff told the affiant (the victim) suffered 47 puncture wounds and a broken nose with multiple blunt force trauma to the head.”
When the woman decided not to tell police who attacked her, her mother stepped in and did so, according to court documents.
The woman’s mother told police her daughter called her after the attack and said Rodgers-Conwell beat and stabbed her and tried to kill her, court documents said.
Still, the woman was reluctant to tell police anything more about her attacker, according to court documents.
Eventually, on an officer’s third trip to the hospital to speak with the woman – and with the woman’s mother and brother present – she identified Rodgers-Conwell as the attacker.
She said in court documents Rodgers-Conwell is her boyfriend and the father of her unborn child. She didn’t identify him as her attacker at first because she feared retribution from him, and that he repeatedly tried to kill her from 4 a.m. to 5 a.m. the morning of May 25.
The woman told police Rodgers-Conwell stabbed her with a kitchen knife and a pair of scissors and used a lamp to beat her in the head, according to court documents. He then threatened to kill her if she told anyone, the woman said in court documents.
Rodgers-Conwell let the woman go to a local hospital to have her wounds treated after she promised not to tell anyone what happened, according to court documents.
Police located Rodgers-Conwell at the woman’s home early in the investigation and before the woman identified him as her attacker, court documents said.
During an interview at police headquarters, Rodgers-Conwell said he was not at the home when the attack happened and claimed he was at an apartment elsewhere with friends. He then said in court documents he came home to take the woman to the hospital.
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Rodgers-Conwell allowed investigators to take photos of his clothing and injuries it appeared he was suffering from, and he even consented to giving a DNA sample, according to court documents.
When pressed about his role in the attack, Rodgers-Conwell asked for an attorney and the interview ended.
Police took his clothes with blood stains on them into evidence at the time.
“The defendant was not detained at this time as the victim had yet to cooperate with investigators,” an officer wrote in court documents.
If convicted of the charges filed against him, Rodgers-Conwell faces up to 50 years in prison.
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