West Virginia Man Charged With Torturing Wife, Keeping Her As A Slave For Decades
A man in West Virginia has been accused of keeping his wife in chains for years, burning her back and breasts with irons and frying pans and crushing her foot with a piece of farm equipment.
A criminal complain said the 43-year-old victim gave birth to a child while kept in chains and delivered another stillborn, the Associated Press reported. Her husband, Peter Lizon of Leroy, W.Va., was being held in jail on $300,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court Friday for a malicious wounding charge.
The woman’s torture was almost indescribable to police. Jackson County Chief Deputy Tony Boggs said that the woman had endured more torture than any other domestic abuse victim he had ever seen.
“This is a case that is tenfold of what our average domestic is and maybe more than that,” Boggs told WSAZ News Channel 3. “It comes down to what appears to be slavery and torture, it seems to be the aspects of this case.”
Police were tipped off about the torture when Lizon’s wife came to a crisis center in Parkersburg, W.Va., with scars on her wrists and ankles left from the metal padlocks that served as her chains. Her feet were mutilated from being smashed with the scoop of a farm tractor, police added.
Lizon’s attorney, Shawn Bayliss, said the allegations are untrue and his wife suffered the injuries from an ATV accident. He said the accusations came from someone with a “feeble mind,” and that the facts of the case will show his innocence. Bayliss also noted that the man’s wife is standing by her man.
