Deputies: Man attacked by hatchet-wielding woman in Hoquiam

HOQUIAM, Wash. — Grays Harbor County sheriff’s deputies arrested a 29-year-old hatchet-wielding woman after they say she went on a drug-fueled rampage early Thursday morning, randomly attacking people inside their two rural Hoquiam homes.

Gerald Guile, 82, underwent surgery in Aberdeen after the woman fractured his skull and broke his arm with the hatchet while he struggled to defend himself inside his bedroom.

"She broke through the back glass door, and she got him in the head four or five times in the head and then she hit him hard enough to break his arm," said Tammy Darrin, Guile's daughter.

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Darrin said during the attack, her father tried to cock a pistol to defend himself but his broken arm prevented him from doing it.

After leaving Guile's house, police say she tried to hack her way into Jim Gold's front door across the street.

"She screamed 'Help! Help!'" said Gold. "We opened the door. A five-foot red head swinging a hatchet still looks big," he said.

Gold said the woman hacked his furniture, smashed his TV and swung wildly at him and his two sons.

"All I had was my cane, but it's kind of like taking nun chucks to a gun fight," he said.

At 5:40 a.m. just before the attacks, police say the woman called 911 herself and told them she was going to "kill the person who had Lindsey Baum." Baum was 10 years old when she disappeared from her McCleary neighborhood in 2009. Her case has never been solved.

Police say the woman they arrested told them she was high on mushrooms, and she smashed her head into the cage inside a police car after they put her in handcuffs. When she fell unconscious, she was raced to the hospital by ambulance where she was listed in critical condition Thursday night.

"I didn't know (mushrooms) would do that much, but it did to her," Gold said.

Guile's family is amazed at his strength.

"Normally if he falls he can't get up," said Darrin. "He said he fell during the attack and he got right up, he doesn't even know how he did it."

Cox Media Group