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Friday, March 29, 2024

Sheriff’s deputies scramble to Dunnellon home to help 911-texting teenager

Dawn Lynn Teuton

Marion County sheriff’s deputies hustled to a Dunnellon residence Tuesday after receiving a 911 text for help from a 13-year-old girl.

When deputies arrived around 2 a.m., the girl told them that she had been lying on the couch talking with a friend on the phone when 46-year-old Dawn Lynn Teuton became angry with her. The girl said she believed that Teuton was intoxicated so she told her to calm down, a sheriff’s office report states.

The girl said that Teuton then climbed on top of her, held her right arm down with one hand and put her other hand around her neck and pushed down with her weight. The girl said he tried to call 911 on her cell phone but Teuton pushed it away and said, “Call 911. I don’t give a (expletive deleted),” the report says.

The teenager said Teuton then grabbed her phone charger cord and allegedly tried to wrap it around her neck. The girl said it got to the point where she “couldn’t breathe and stuff” but she was able to push Teuton off of her with her feet, the report says, adding that deputies observed faint redness around the base of the girl’s neck by her shirt collar.

The owner of the home said she was in the bathroom when the incident occurred but she heard the teenager “hollering” and Teuton say, “I’m going to (expletive removed) you up.” She also reported hearing Teuton calling the girl names, the report says.

After being read her rights, Teuton denied putting her hands on the girl. She claimed that she and the teenager had been “joking around” and that she hadn’t done anything wrong. And she claimed that the girl threw a shoe at her face, though deputies didn’t see any marks on her, the report says.

Teuton was taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail, where she was charged with domestic battery by strangulation and cruelty toward a child without great bodily harm. She was being held on $10,000 bond and is due in court April 16 at 9 a.m. to answer to the charges.