-
Ryan Christopher Jaco
Authorities arrested a Palatka man they said tried to remove the eyeball of a woman he’s accused of subduing for hours.
On Thursday, Ryan Christopher Jaco, 44, was charged with kidnapping-false imprisonment, aggravated battery and possession of a controlled substance without a prescription.
The altercation, which took place for “hours,” began at about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday when Jaco took the victim’s phone, was angered at what he found, threw her on the bed in retaliation and began hitting her in the face and head “multiple times in which she lost count to remember,” Deputy Matthew Lawrence wrote in a sheriff’s office incident report.
The victim, whom Lawrence met at HCA Florida Putnam Hospital, said she couldn’t get away from Jaco because he pinned her in place by putting his knees in her should region, the report said. The suspect also choked the woman to the point where she thought she would lose consciousness and he gripped her jaw while placing fingers down her throat, the report said.
Authorities said there was bruising on her shoulders and neck that substantiated her accusations. The victim told deputies Jaco used a hollow metal pipe in an attempt to remove her eye, which also had bruising, the report said.
Jaco has also been accused of grabbing the victim by her hair and dragging her outside, where he said he would cut off her arms with “a saw-like tool,” authorities said.
“Ryan released her hair and told her to wait in front of the garage,” Lawrence wrote in the report. “(The woman) then ran away into the woods to escape from Ryan at which point Ryan began screaming at her to come back to him.”
She hid in the woods and eventually went to the home of a neighbor, who called the authorities, the report said.
Lawrence noted one side of the woman’s head had thinner hair and lacerations, both of which the woman said occurred because of the altercation, the sheriff’s office said.
Deputies eventually made contact with Jaco and found “two separate glass like cylinders which connected to glass spheres” that had burnt residue within them, the report said. Jaco consented to having his residence searched and informed deputies there was methamphetamine inside, according to the sheriff’s office.
They found the drugs where he said it was located, authorities said.
Jaco was booked into the Putnam County Jail on $28,000 bail, but the jail’s online inmate search shows an ankle monitor hold.