ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 9, 1996 TAG: 9604090096
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
Three people were badly hurt over the weekend in bloody altercations in their homes, Roanoke police said.
The injuries came in two separate episodes.
In one case, a man apparently was pummeled on the head with a claw hammer - and his attacker's identity is still a mystery to police.
In the other, a woman was charged with stabbing her boyfriend in the buttocks, and the boyfriend was charged with biting and choking her.
Police gave these accounts:
About 11 a.m. Saturday, a friend found Michael Lee Bream, 31, of Chapman Avenue Southwest dazed and bleeding from the head.
Bream's apartment was splattered with blood, and police found a claw hammer that was stained with blood - apparently the weapon used to beat Bream.
The friend told police that he, Bream and another man had been out drinking Friday night. He returned to Bream's apartment Saturday morning, knocked on the door, but got no response. The door was unlocked, so he walked in and found Bream on the floor.
Bream spoke briefly with a police officer at the hospital, but lapsed into unconsciousness before he could say who had hit him.
"He couldn't say a whole lot," a police spokesman said. But "the way he acted, the officers felt like he knew what had happened - it wasn't a surprise attack."
Bream was listed in serious condition Monday in an intensive-care unit at Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
Police said Bream still wasn't well enough Monday to talk about what happened, but a hospital therapist is working with him, and they expect he'll be able to talk later. At this point, "we're waiting for him to tell us what he knows," the police spokesman said.
Sharon Elaine Lewis was charged with malicious wounding and Melvin Thomas Thompson Jr. was charged with assault and battery after a fight at their home on Delta Drive Northwest.
Lewis, 40, told police she cut Thompson after he choked and hit her, knocking a tooth out. She also suffered bite marks, police said.
Thompson, 28, suffered stab wounds in his buttocks, left shoulder and left wrist, police said. The fight happened about 11 p.m. Saturday.
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