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Bluefield couple arrested for beating elderly woman for drug money

BLUEFIELD, W.Va. — A Bluefield man and woman are in custody for allegedly beating an 81 year old woman for drug money, according to police.

Wayne Hartley, 44, and Angela Graham, 41, both of Bluefield, were arrested Saturday after Patricia Hartley, Wayne’s mother, was attacked inside her Wythe Avenue home.

Police said Graham, the girlfriend of Wayne Hartley, beat Patricia Hartley with a marble rolling pin and baseball bat, cut her wrist with a paring knife and attacked her with a large sledge hammer.

All of this happened just before 10 p.m. Saturday. Neighbors said they heard Patricia Hartley screaming and then found her lying on the floor of her basement, covered in blood with several injuries.

According to the police report, the blood trail from the basement went up the stairs and into the kitchen area of the home near the bathroom. The blood was smeared in the kitchen and on the door frames of the basement, with hand prints, as if someone bleeding had been forcefully pulled to the steps.

Graham told police she is addicted to dilaudids and that she tried to steal the mother’s debit card to buy drugs. Police said Wayne Hartley was upstairs in the bedroom watching television when Graham went downstairs to try to steal the debit card. Graham was unable to find the debit card, so she beat the woman multiple times as she screamed for her son, the police report said.

Once Graham found the debit card, she and Wayne took off in a 2014 Jeep Compass. Police said they withdrew money from an ATM and bought dilaudids and liquor then went to Jimmy Lewis Lake near Bluewell where they tossed the weapons and clothes Graham was wearing into the lake.

Wayne Hartley has denied any involvement in the attack, police said.

Both Wayne Hartley and Graham were arrested and charged with malicious wounding, attempted murder, felony conspiracy, assault during the commission of a felony, domestic battery, domestic assault, violent crimes against the elderly, first-degree armed robbery and fraudulent use of an access device.

They remain in the Southern Regional Jail on $1 million bond each.

Patricia Hartley is listed in critical condition at CAMC’s Intensive Care Unit.





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