Woman Charged After Attacking Daughter With Hedge Clippers

Westwood, MA — A Massachusetts woman has been charged with attempted murder and mayhem after allegedly attacking her 9-year-old daughter with electric hedge clippers.

Maureen Mullin is also charged with assault and battery on a child with injury and assault and battery with a deadly weapon, according to Westwood police. The girl’s father intervened to prevent his wife from further attacking him and their children. He told police that he was sleeping when he heard his daughters screaming, and one of them said, “Why are you doing this mommy?”

Mullin had her arm wrapped around her daughter and held the hedge clippers near her face. The father unplugged the hedge clippers and wrestled it away from his wife, grabbing her in a bear hug as the second daughter, a 5-year-old, called police. That child was unharmed.

Police arrived at 39-year-old Mullin’s home at 126 Pond St. at 5:04 am after receiving a report of domestic violence.

“One child was seriously injured, but they were non-life threatening and the second child has no significant or physical injuries that we’re aware of,” said Westwood Police Chief Jeffrey Silva.

Silva also said that there was no past history of domestic violence incidents at the home.

“Not anything to speak of,” he said. “Never anything that has a negative connotation.”

Mullin and her daughter were treated at the scene, and both were brought to Boston-area hospitals for treatment. Mullin was arraigned while at the hospital, and a dangerousness hearing was set for July 15.

It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted Mullin to attack her daughter, but her husband claimed that she suffers from depression. When asked why she attacked her child, she reportedly said, “I just wanted us all to be together.”

Court paperwork says that Mullin tried to kill herself before police arrived at the home, and she remains in a Boston hospital under observation.