Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 8, 1994 TAG: 9402080194
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
Macel J. Simms, 48, was not allowed to leave the room and was not given food or water for nearly 24 hours, authorities said Monday.
Interviewed by police at Community Hospital of the Roanoke Valley, Simms said she was held prisoner at a Day Avenue Southwest home from 8:30 a.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Sunday.
She told police her boyfriend tore the telephone out of the wall and would not allow her to leave the bedroom, not even to use the bathroom.
She said she was held down on a bed and beaten often during the ordeal.
James Matthew Witt, 37, of the same Day Avenue address, has been charged with assault and battery.
Police said that Simms' face was swollen and bruised, and she apparently had been bitten on her right elbow.
Simms told police she managed to slip away from the house Sunday morning. She was treated and released Sunday from Community Hospital.
In other police reports Monday:
A 39-year-old man was slashed on the neck with a box cutter during an argument Sunday night with a man he had been drinking with at his Carroll Avenue home. Ernest B. Gilbert, 39, was treated at Community Hospital. A suspect interviewed by police said he cut Gilbert in self-defense.
Teresa Lyle, 34, of Applewood Drive Northwest, told police she was beaten by a group of three men and three women as she walked Sunday night on Melrose Avenue Northwest. She was treated at Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
by CNB