Home invasion victim still in ICU
Angie Dunagan is being treated at Erlanger after she was beaten by a man with a baseball bat during a home invasion.
“Hurry home, I’m gonna die,” were the words a battered and bloodied 64-yearold woman told her husband. She had just crawled out through the back door to the barn at her Everett Springs Road home so she could get cellphone service to call for help, according to Christina Lewis.
Lewis, whose oldest sister’s mother-inlaw is the victim, spoke to the Rome NewsTribune on behalf of Angie Dunagan’s family, who are at Erlanger Medical Center in Chattanooga where Dunagan remained in the intensive care unit Saturday night.
Lewis described devastation amongst family members a day after 36-year-old Teddy Eugene O’Neal — a stranger — reportedly invaded Dunagan’s home and beat her with a baseball bat before taking her 2007 GMC Yukon and fleeing Friday.
According to Floyd police Maj. Jeff Jones, O’Neal entered the home on Everett Springs Road around 9 a.m. Friday to commit a burglary and steal a vehicle. “At this time, the investigation has revealed that this was a random home,” Jones wrote in a text message Saturday.
O’Neal, of 206 N. Pine St., was taken into custody by Floyd County police Friday afternoon at a business off Park Avenue in Lindale, hours after a lookout was issued on the Yukon. He is charged with felony armed robbery, aggravated assault with the intent to commit murder, aggravated battery,
aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of first-degree burglary and theft by taking a motor vehicle.
According to Jones, O’Neal “was on the run from a previous burglary in which (Floyd County police investigator Charles) Miller had an outstanding arrest warrant.”
The warrant states O’Neal entered an Alfred Avenue home on May 24 to commit a theft or felony. He took jewelry from the home, Jones said.
Dunagan has been in and out of consciousness, Lewis said, but when she wakes up, relatives have been advised by police to write down what she says about the attack.
Lewis said O’Neal had knocked on Dunagan’s door and told her he had run out of gas up the road. He then asked Dunagan for her car keys, and when she said “no,” O’Neal forced the door open and began beating her, Lewis continued.
“He left her for dead,” Lewis said, adding that the beating left Dunagan with bleeding in the brain and injuries to vertebrae in her neck and lower back. Lewis said the blows the “little bitty,
tiny woman” sustained also broke her jaw, some of her ribs and fingers, and a wrist. “It’s just horrible.”
Lewis said Dunagan was also slashed with a kitchen knife on the chin and neck, and was stabbed.
Jones could not confirm whether Dunagan was attacked with a knife, saying it was hard to determine each detail of the assault since communicating with her was hindered because of the extent of her head injury. However, he did confirm there was a knife at the scene.
According to Lewis, the home’s phone lines had apparently been cut by O’Neal. Emergency personnel made it to the home just before 9:30 a.m. after family alerted 911.
O’Neal was arrested in June 2016 on methamphetamine possession and distribution charges. He remained at the Floyd County Jail without bond Saturday night.