Family of man beaten with hammer, left for dead want justice
A man who was beaten with a hammer and left for dead has brain damage and his family said the it is catastrophic.
The attack happened just before Memorial Day in a community west of Kings Mountain.
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Family members said they still don’t know why he was brutally assaulted.
Billy Hollifield’s family was overwhelmed with emotion upon hearing him speak for the first time in a month.
His wife, Sharon Hollifield, said she will never forget his words.
“Please come and get me,” he said over the phone from a hospital bed in Charlotte. “I want to come home. I want to come home.”
“My heart immediately thanked God,” Sharon Hollifield said.
She and her daughters thought he would die after the beating.
They said the attack broke every bone in his head and fractured his skull, which is what caused the brain damage.
“The man that used to teach me things and play with me is now lying there,” said his daughter Tiffney Bell.
Nurses said Billy Hollifield said only one thing about the attack, which was he got hit in the head.
Christopher Huggins, the man charged with assault, threw tires and trash on Billy Hollifield, family members said.
They said no one had explained what led up to the assault.
“There’s no thought in my mind that can even warrant somebody picking up a hammer,” said his daughter, Nikki Dyer. “This man does not have a soul.”
Family members said doctors aren’t sure about the depths of the brain damage.
The women who say they have known him all their lives say they don’t recognize him and he’s not the same.
“A totally different version of my father,” Bell said. “One that I have never seen before.”
The attack happened five days after Huggins was released from prison on charges of resisting an officer and assaulting a state employee.
“We want justice,” said Dyer.
Huggins was charged with assault with intent to kill inflicting serious injury.
