Marion County sheriff’s deputies responding to a 911 hang-up call last week found a red-faced female senior citizen on the bathroom floor of an Ocala home, bleeding from a large cut near her left eye.
The woman told deputies that she dialed 911 late Tuesday night because she “was dizzy and her body hurt.” When deputies asked her what had happened, she “was hesitant and began to cry,” a sheriff’s office report states.
The woman eventually claimed that that 47-year-old Dawn Marie Schroeder “struck her numerous times and pushed her to the floor during an argument,” the report states, adding that Schroeder has been living with the woman more than five years.
The woman told deputies Schroeder became visibly upset when she was talking to her girlfriend, who also lives in the home. She said she didn’t remember how many times she was hit but does recall not being able to get up from the bathroom floor and yelling to her son for help, the report says.
The woman’s son confirmed that he helped his mother off the floor and that he “heard all the yelling and screaming.” But he said he stayed in his bedroom because he “did not want to witness any altercation,” the report says.
Schroeder’s girlfriend told deputies that “no incident occurred” and the injured woman “was lying.” She also said that she and Schroeder had been sleeping, the report says.
Deputies then spoke with Schroeder inside her bedroom at the home on NE 1st Place and she denied any kind of altercation with the injured woman, the report says. Schroeder couldn’t provide an explanation as to how the woman sustained the injuries and was then taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail.
Schroeder was charged with battery on a person 65 years of age or older, as well as a violating her probation on a previous burglary charge. She was held on $5,000 bond on the new charge and no bond on the probation violation.
Schroeder is scheduled to appear in a Marion County courtroom Sept. 20 at 9 a.m. on the probation violation and again on Oct. 2 at 9 a.m. on the battery charge.