Hilton Head woman arrested after child calls grandmother, says his mom and dad were fighting

A Hilton Head Island woman was arrested three days before Christmas after she struck her partner in front of their children, causing one of the children to call a grandparent for help, Beaufort County Sheriff’s deputies said.

The incident was reported about 9:10 a.m. Dec. 22 at a Yacht Cove Drive home, according to a Sheriff’s Office report. A deputy responded after a woman said her grandson called her “screaming” that his mother and father were fighting.

As the woman spoke with her grandson, she said his father took the phone and hung up, the report said. She called back twice and was able to speak with the boy’s father on the second call.

The man told the grandmother that her daughter was “high and possibly on drugs,” and accused her of stealing $100 that be believed she used to buy drugs, the report said.

The grandmother then heard more screaming and “what sounded like a physical altercation” before she heard the man say, “If you hit me like a man, I will hit you like a man,” the report said.

The woman’s daughter then got on the phone and asked her mother to come get her children, informing her that she and the man were fighting, the report said.

When the grandmother arrived, she took the children and later told a deputy that her daughter “appeared to be high and possibly on drugs,” the report said. She said her daughter uses heroin and had a spoon in her purse with “white cotton on it,” according to the report.

One of the children who spoke with a deputy said his parents physically fought, the report said.

The child reported that an argument between the pair began when his father accused his mother of stealing money to buy drugs. He said his father put his arm around his mother’s neck and punched her in the face three times before throwing her to the ground, the report said.

The child’s brother told the deputy that his mother punched his father two times in the face before his father pushed his mother, and she fell to the ground, the report said.

The children’s mother told a deputy that she and the man argued, but that the argument never became physical. The man said the woman stole the $100 from him, and that the argument became physical when the woman punched him “several times in the face,” the report said.

A deputy noted in the report that the woman’s eyes appeared glassy and bloodshot, and that she seemed to be under the influence of an unknown substance. The man, the report said, also had swelling and redness above his left eye.

The woman was arrested and deputies found a spoon in her purse with white residue on it, which tested positive for a cocaine base, the report said.

She was taken to the Beaufort County Detention center on a second-degree domestic violence charge. A deputy noted in the report that he was advised by a judge that there was not enough probable cause to charge the woman with cocaine possession.

This story was originally published December 28, 2017 at 2:29 PM with the headline "Hilton Head woman arrested after child calls grandmother, says his mom and dad were fighting."