An Emporium mother and son have been charged with attempted murder for allegedly beating the mother’s landlord nearly to death while he was trying to evict her.
Tanya Elizabeth McCurley, 59, of 210 W. 4th St., and her son, Donovan Jude McCurley, 31, of 3145 Rich Valley Road, were both charged with conspiracy to commit attempted murder and aggravated assault — serious bodily injury with extreme indifference, all first-degree felonies. Donovan McCurley is also charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault — serious bodily injury with extreme indifference, first-degree felonies.
According to the criminal complaint, the incident occurred at the residence at 210 W. 4th St. on Sept. 3 at 4:30 p.m., and lasted approximately 32 hours.
The victim, who was the mother’s landlord at the time, was sitting on a bed inside the residence, completing eviction forms, when Tanya McCurley struck him on the head with a baseball bat, temporarily incapacitating him, the criminal complaint stated.
While he was incapacitated, Donovan McCurley struck him multiple times in the face with a closed fist, causing his eyes to swell shut, kneed him several times in the chest and back and put his hands across the victim’s throat, restricting his breathing. The victim later told police he remembered “coming to” several times over a period of several hours, and hearing Tanya McCurley yell to her son “He’s moving, hit him again,” the complaint stated.
Troopers noted visible signs of assault on the victim, including swelling of both eyes to a point where he could not see, a disfigured nose with swelling and blood in and around the nostrils, black and blue bruising on his neck, multiple bruises on his upper back, swelling on both sides of his rib cage and multiple bruises to his rib cage, the complaint stated.
Medical records showed multiple facial and rib fractures, and that the victim had contracted pneumonia from lying on the floor for so long, with blood from his head and facial injuries draining into his lungs. He suffered an infection from the pneumonia and was placed on a ventilator with a 10% chance of survival without it. Eventually he had to be removed from the ventilator, and as of Oct. 19, was “alive and making progress to recovery but will likely need several surgeries due to the injuries sustained during the attempted murder,” the complaint stated.
On Sept. 12, Donovan McCurley, when hospitalized for mental health reasons, made statements to mental health personnel that he had homicidal ideation against the victim, the same person he assaulted prior to his hospital admission, the complaint alleged.
On Oct. 11, state police interviewed the son of the victim at the residence where the assault happened. The son said he was cleaning up when he found a baseball bat with blood stains on the end and on the grip, and a blood-stained pillow case next to it, “located on the floor near the wall to the left of the bed. The same area where (the victim) laid helpless for approximately 32 hours,” the criminal complaint stated.
When police interviewed Tanya McCurley, she said there was a bat at the scene when the victim was assaulted, that her son hit the victim several times and she couldn’t say for certain if she did or didn’t hit the victim, the complaint stated.
The mother and son were both arraigned before District Judge Barry Brown in Emporium. Both were remanded to jail, her in lieu of $150,000 bail, and him in lieu of $250,000 bail.
Preliminary hearings for both are set for Nov. 3.
