A West Virginia man whose sister awoke from a two-year coma last month and accused him of attacking her with a hatchet has died.
Daniel Palmer, 55, was facing attempted murder and malicious wounding charges in the 2020 attack that left his sister, Wanda, nearly dead and suffering brain damage. Landscapers found her in her home in a pool of blood and unconscious.
“I wouldn’t have wagered a nickel for her life that morning,” Jackson County Sheriff Ross Mellinger said earlier this month, according to WCHS. “She was in that bad of shape. Quite honestly, she was unconscious, circling the drain medically.”
BREAKING: Daniel Palmer, the man accused of attacking his sister who was in a 2-year coma, has died. I'm told he was in poor health and hospitalized shortly after his arrival at the South Central Regional Jail. He was taken off life-support last night. pic.twitter.com/qbe89ho8YI
— Leslie Rubin (@LeslieRubinWCHS) July 22, 2022
When Wanda Palmer came out of her coma last month, she told police who had allegedly attacked her: Her own brother.
After he was arrested, Mellinger said it took deputies several hours to get the suspect calm enough to participate in his arraignment, which took place in the jail. He had been held on a $500,000 bond, but it was not clear if he posted it or how he died although WCHS reported that he had been in poor health and was hospitalized shortly after his arrest.
Palmer’s mother, Eileen, told WTAP she was stunned that the attack, in the quiet town in the western part of the state near the Ohio River, could have been carried out undetected. She lives next door to her daughter.
“I had my windows open in my home, and we never heard one thing,” she said.
Mellinger said his officers had little to go on at the time. No weapon was recovered and there were no witnesses.
“We had a little bit of an idea what happened, but the problem was with the nuts and bolts of the case we had nothing to go on,” he told WV MetroNews in a Friday report. “There was no eyewitnesses, nobody [else] lived in the home, no surveillance footage, no cell phone records. There was virtually nothing there to move forward on.”
Police were suspicious of Daniel Palmer, but until Wanda Palmer awoke and identified him, they never had enough to build a case, Mellinger said.
When authorities learned Wanda Palmer had awakened at the facility that has cared for her for two years, they paid her a visit, authorities told MetroNews.
“From an investigator’s standpoint, this is about as rare as it gets,” Mellinger told WCHS. “I think it’s a true testament to the perseverance and the strength of the victim herself.”
Source: Dailywire
