In June of 2020,Wanda Palmerwas found “attacked, hacked, and left for dead” in her Cottageville, W. Va., home.
Mellinger says the weapon used was likely a hatchet or machete, and Wanda had “a lot of skull and brain trauma.”
“We thought she was dead,” he says, but “she gurgles, and you realize she still has a breath or two in her.”
Wanda, 51, was put on life support and eventually hospitalized in acoma after the brutal attack.
Although police suspected that her brother Daniel J. Palmer III had something to do with it, the case remained unsolved.
“Way into adulthood they had a past,” Mellinger says about the siblings. “It is a small rural county, and everybody knows one another. There is a well-documented history of the family dynamics there. But it never had been to this magnitude before.”
Mellinger says a witness even saw Daniel on Wanda’s porch the night before police responded to her home, but a lack of eyewitnesses, evidence and surveillance footage made the case difficult to investigate.
Daniel and Wanda Palmer.Jackson County WV Sheriff’s Department/Facebook
Everything changed a few weeks ago when Mellinger received a call from Wanda’s long-term care facility with big news: Wanda was finally able to speak with law enforcement.
“It was pretty astonishing,” he adds. “She’s coherent and lucid and she can understand. It certainly gave us the traction we needed to move forward on our end.”
Wanda was able to get “her voice back, and most importantly her voice mattered,” Mellinger says. “She got her voice back and what she had to say mattered to everybody. That’s important.”
On July 15, Daniel, 55, was charged with attempted murder and malicious wounding following the assault.
“He was pretty combative and resistant” at the time of his arrest, says Mellinger.
Danieldied seven days laterwhile in custody.
Mellinger believes that his death was most likely due to natural causes.
“From an investigator’s standpoint it is unfortunate we don’t get the chance to see the case through,” he says. “We turn the focus towards the victim in the case and hope she continues to get better. She has a long road ahead of her.”
What happened between the siblings that night still remains a mystery.
Says Mellinger, “It is very likely we will never know.”
source: people.com
