Man sought in machete attack

A woman is recovering from head and arm wounds that police say were inflicted by her ex-boyfriend.

Police are looking for Clifford Fredrick Whatley, 30, in the wake of a machete attack at the Riverwood Park apartment complex late Wednesday night.

The victim, Syveta Sewell, was recovering Thursday from slashes and fractures to her head and arm. She said via a phone interview that she wants her former boyfriend off the streets.

“My location isn’t important. Everybody needs to be looking for his location,” she said.

A warrant charging Whatley with aggravated battery was issued Thursday morning.

According to Rome Police Department reports:

Officers responding to the apartment complex on West 13th Street around 10 p.m. found a number of people outside and a “large blood trail” leading to the bathroom where Sewell was sitting in a chair.

A deputy was attending to a deep, 4-inch to 6-inch, gash on her arm and “an obvious fracture of at least one bone.” A neighbor was applying pressure to a wound in her head, where a piece of skin was missing and her skull was visible.

Sewell, who was going in and out of consciousness, was taken to a local hospital for treatment.

Later, at the hospital, she told the officer that she had recently broken up with Whatley but he was still living at the apartment they shared. They were sitting outside, talking about their relationship, when Whatley became angered that she did not want to get back together.

He reportedly told her, “If I can’t have you, nobody can,” then told her he was going to “let you see your mama” — who had recently died — and pulled the machete from under his shirt.

Sewell told police Whatley struck her head with the massive knife and she couldn’t see. As she reached for the door to tell her son to call police, he swung again and cut her arm. She began beating at the door of the next apartment, where a neighbor called 911 and rendered aid.

Whatley may be driving a red Buick or Sewell’s burgundy Suburban. She told police he has relatives in Rome and Savannah.