Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

'Blood everywhere': Horrific details emerge as GOP star charged with attacking wife

rawstory.com · 11dShare

Former Arkansas state Rep. Austin McCollum has been charged with three felonies after his wife accused him in a court filing of a pattern of violent abuse, including telling her to kill herself and offering to fetch a gun when she described suicidal thoughts. Prosecutors formally charged McCollum, 35, with second-degree domestic battering, first-degree false imprisonment, and aggravated assault on a family or household member, all felonies, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported . He was arrested on Aug. 1 and released the next day on a $10,000 bond. McCollum has not publicly addressed the abuse allegations, and his criminal defense attorney, Shane Wilkinson, declined to comment on the claims in the petition. In an Aug. 12 filing, McCollum denied a separate claim in his wife's divorce complaint that he had made her life intolerable, and he has filed his own counterclaim seeking a divorce. In her petition for an order of protection, filed in Benton County Circuit Court in early August,

First report: Former Arkansas state representative formally charged with three felonies in case accusing him of attacking his wife — arkansasonline.com, 13d