Family Member Arrested After Attacked Woman Wakes from 2-Year Coma and Tells Cops What She Remembers

Investigators have made an arrest in an attack from two years ago after the victim woke from a coma.

According to West Virginia’s MetroNews, Wanda Palmer was beaten inside her Cottageville, West Virginia, home in June 2020. Authorities arrived to find her unconscious.

“When we got there, to be honest we thought she was dead,” said Jackson County Sherriff Ross Mellenger, according to the news outlet.

While Palmer remained in a coma, detectives investigated multiple leads regarding the identity of the attacker. Each of them resulted in a dead end.

“We had a little bit of an idea what happened, but the problem was with the nuts and bolts of the case. We had nothing to go on,” Mellenger said, according to MetroNews.

“There was no eyewitnesses, nobody lived in the home, no surveillance footage, no cell phone records. There was virtually nothing there to move forward on.”

That was until last week, when a New Martinsville, West Virginia, long-term care center called detectives in Jackson County and informed them Palmer had come out of her coma after two years.

Investigators traveled to the home and found that while Palmer suffered brain damage from the attack, she was able to communicate enough to tell them what she remembered of the attack, MetroNews reported.

She said her brother, Daniel Palmer, was the one who attacked her, MetroNews reported.

Mellenger detailed the unique and surprising nature of the case.

“The keys to the whole thing lay with the victim herself and with her unable to communicate we were left with nothing,” he said, according to MetroNews

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“Now low and behold two years later and boom, she’s awake and able to tell us exactly what happened.”

After speaking to Wanda Palmer, detectives arrested Daniel Palmer and charged him with attempted murder and malicious wounding, MetroNews reported.

Mellenger told the outlet investigators thought either a machete or a hatchet was used in the attack to strike the victim in the head.

He added Daniel Palmer did not resist officers when they arrested him.

“He didn’t give us any fight or anything,” Mellenger said. “There was a little bit of surprise, but not entirely.”

Detectives questioned Palmer, but Mellenger did not have an update on the allegations against him, MetroNews reported.

Though detectives apprehended and charged Palmer last week, the investigation into the attack is continuing, according to MetroNews.

Associate Reporter