A Nashville woman was left battered and bleeding in her own backyard after her ex-boyfriend allegedly attacked her with a hammer, just half an hour after police dropped her off at home with a newly obtained order of protection, according to her father.
Jeremy Perger told local Fox that his daughter, Bailey Perger, was attacked in the early hours of Oct. 17 at her home in Nashville. He said she had secured the order of protection against her ex, Ross Peterson, at around 6:15 a.m. that Saturday.
“Unfortunately, I told her she should be fine going back home,” Jeremy Perger said. “When she got home 30 minutes later, he was outside slashing her tires.”
Officers were called to the home at around 7:15 a.m. and found Bailey Perger “lying in her backyard with extensive injuries to her head and face,” according to a press release from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.
The department said officers had visited the house “a few hours earlier,” after Bailey Perger reported that Peterson had been sending her “multiple threatening text messages” and had turned up at her doorstep, “where they argued.” Police helped her obtain the order of protection as well as a harassment warrant.
“Officers drove the victim home,” the release says. “A short time later, Peterson returned to the residence. The victim heard a knock at the door and when she looked outside, she reported seeing Peterson appear to vandalize her car. She went outside to confront him when the attack occurred.”
Police recovered a hammer from the ground in the backyard and collected it as evidence, MNPD officials said.
Peterson allegedly took Bailey Perger’s cellphone during the assault and fled. Initial attempts to find him failed, but he was eventually tracked down and arrested in Arkansas.
Bailey Perger’s mother said on Facebook last week that her daughter has undergone facial surgery and now faces a “long road of recovery.” Ahead of the operation, she posted a photo of Peterson alongside a message: “Please continue to pray for my girl who will go into surgery today to repair what this MONSTER did to her.”
Her father, speaking through tears, told the station he was struggling to come to terms with what happened. “The fact that we live in a horrible world and something like this can happen,” Jeremy Perger said, crying. “I want him to go away for a long time.”
Peterson is expected to be returned to Nashville in the coming days. He faces multiple charges in Davidson County in connection with the attack, including aggravated assault.