A Cary man was arrested after a several-hour search after authorities say he beat his girlfriend in a moving vehicle, hung up on 911 as she screamed for help and struck her with a glass bottle after leaving a McHenry bar.
James T. Owens, 26, of Cary, was charged with two counts of aggravated battery, a Class 3 felony, along with two counts of domestic battery and one count of interfering with the reporting of domestic violence, all Class A misdemeanors.
The McHenry County Sheriff’s Office responded around 2:09 a.m. Saturday to a 911 hang-up call in the area of Meg’s Den Neighborhood Bar, 906 Porten Road in unincorporated McHenry.
Bar staff told responding deputies that the man and woman had left the bar before deputies arrived, according to police radio traffic.
Court documents said Owens repeatedly struck his girlfriend while they were in a moving vehicle, with him stopping the vehicle from time to time to grab her head and slam it into the dashboard.
Owens began driving erratically and when the woman tried to call police, he hung up on 911 and then hung up on dispatchers when they called back, court documents said.
911 dispatchers could hear the woman screaming for help in the background.
A criminal complaint filed in McHenry County Circuit Court alleges that Owens hung up the calls through the vehicle’s infotainment system.
Owens then crashed the woman’s vehicle and began throwing items around inside the vehicle and at her, court documents said.
Court documents said he grabbed a glass liquor bottle and struck the woman in the temple so hard that the bottle broke, leaving her with a cut to her right hand and a large laceration to her buttock.
The complaint said the bottle shattered and caused a laceration about two inches long to the woman’s buttock.
Owens also repeatedly punched the woman in the left temple with a closed fist, causing redness, bruising and swelling to her temple, according to the complaint.
Deputies were then dispatched to the 600 block of Camden Lane in Port Barrington for calls of a woman screaming, according to police radio traffic. Deputies arrived and learned Owens had fled the scene on foot.
The victim was transported by ambulance to Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington where she received stitches for the wound.
A police canine was called to help search for Owens.
He was arrested around 5:45 a.m. following a canine track, about three-and-a-half hours after the initial 911 call, and transported to the McHenry County Jail.
The McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office filed a petition to detain Owens pending trial, arguing there are no conditions of release that could mitigate the threat he poses to the safety of the victim and the community.
McHenry County Judge Cynthia Lamb granted the petition following an Initial Appearance Court hearing on Monday afternoon.
Lamb said GPS monitoring would only keep Owens away from a specific area and not every place the woman might go, noting the attack happened in a vehicle on a roadway rather than at the woman’s home. Electronic home monitoring would only keep him at home for certain hours each day, and nothing would stop him from going to find the woman when he was allowed out, Lamb said.
Owens previously pleaded guilty to domestic battery involving a different woman and was sentenced to 18 months of conditional discharge, which ended in March.
Owens was charged in that case with a seven-count indictment and the woman alleged in a petition for an order of protection that Owens, while a passenger in her moving vehicle, threw items at her as she drove, strangled her several times, jammed a bottle of bug spray into her leg and poured its contents on her head.
He was also accused of spitting on her and striking her with objects. That woman was granted a two-year order of protection against Owens.
Court documents said the woman in the latest case reported in a domestic violence risk assessment that Owens had previously hit, slapped, kicked and choked her, threatened to kill her and himself, and prevented her from seeking help.
The responding deputy rated the immediate risk to the woman as high.
Owens is scheduled to appear in court again on October 16 for a preliminary hearing.