C’burg man arrested for domestic battery in front of teen

Taylor Smith, 39, Campbellsburg, was arrested after he reportedly bashed a woman’s head into a wall hard enough to damage the wall, while the woman’s teen daughter was present.

Deputy Tory Hildreth said in his report the sheriff’s department had already been to the couple’s home that day regarding a verbal argument. As 6 p.m. approached, Hildreth returned to the home.

He found Smith and the woman coming out onto the porch, yelling at each other. Hildreth said the woman was yelling at Smith, telling him he was abusive and needed help. Hildreth said he could smell alcohol on Smith as he approached.

The woman told Hildreth Smith had been grabbing her by the hair and throwing her down. Smith said the woman had been “beating on him all day” and asked Hildreth to look for a knot on his head and a gouge from where she had been hitting him, along with the left side of his face, which he said would be red from her hitting him. Hildreth said he didn’t see any injuries. Smith claimed he had not done anything to the woman.

Hildreth took the woman a short distance away to speak with her. She said the two had been in a verbal argument throughout the day and that Smith had left the home, then returned, after which they continued to argue. She said, during the argument, she went into the bathroom by the door and told Smith he needed to leave. She said Smith grabbed her by the hair with both of his hands and hit her head against the bathroom door and spit on her face and in her mouth. She said she fell to the floor, but was able to get back up.

She said Smith told her he would “like to take her head and bash it” through the window. She said she told him again to leave, but he grabbed her by the hair again and pushed her into the bathroom wall, causing her to bust a hole in the drywall.

She claimed she tried to pull her phone from her pocket to call 911, but said Smith took it from her and told her she wasn’t going to call the cops. She said her daughter saw this happen and Smith eventually gave the phone back.

Hildreth spoke to the teen, who said she heard her mother hit the wall and went to the bathroom to see what happened. She found her mother sitting against the wall by the bathroom counter where the hole was. She said she had her phone out and repeated said she was going to call the police, but Smith took the phone away. She told Hildreth she had been hearing Smith and her mother arguing and had heard her mother tell Smith to go away and get out earlier.

Hildreth placed Smith in handcuffs and he was later booked at the Washington County Detention Center and preliminarily charged with domestic battery in the physical presence of a child younger than 16 and interference with the reporting of a crime.