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Son charged with assault in mom’s beating
The accused and the victim gave different accounts of what had transpired.
BOARDMAN — This past weekend may have included the Mother’s Day holiday, but police say 18-year-old Cameron Shaffer was showing anything but love toward his 49-year-old mother.
Township police charged Shaffer with felonious assault after they say he beat his mother, sending the woman to the hospital with head injuries.
Shaffer is in the Mahoning County Jail pending his appearance in Mahoning County Court here.
According to police, officers were called to the family’s Gardenwood Drive home Saturday. When officers arrived, Shaffer was standing in the front yard with dirt on his pants and blood on his arms.
According to reports, Shaffer told officers that his mother “went nuts and attacked him with a knife,” and he did not know where she went. He told officers he had just gotten home and had been drinking but adjusted the story to say that he had been sleeping when his mom attacked him.
Responding officers were then sent to a Hitchcock Road address where they found a bloodied woman and a much different version of what transpired in the Shaffer home.
According to reports, Shaffer’s mother, told officers Shaffer had in fact attacked her. She reportedly had a huge cut on her head and was covered in blood and dirt.
The woman said Shaffer caused the injury to her head with his fists. She did not recall being struck with anything other than Shaffer’s hands.
Inside the Gardenwood home, however, officers found a drawer pulled out in the kitchen and drink spilled on the floor. In the basement, officers found a lot of blood and a broken “Guitar Hero” game guitar alongside what they believed to be human flesh.
The woman was taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center by ambulance.
jgoodwin@vindy.com