A Florida woman is in a coma after she was brutally beaten by her roommate who she'd found on Craigslist, her family said.
Danielle Jones was “bludgeoned, strangled and face mutilated in an attempted murder,” according to a GoFundMe page set up by a family member. The incident took place on Valentine’s Day, which was also her 23rd birthday.
“He beat her to a coma and ventilator support with various face and skull fractures, multiple injuries to include multiple cuts on her face,” Jones’ mother Aimee Cabo Nikolove told local station ABC 10 News.
Her roommate, 35-year-old Byron Mitchell, was arrested Feb. 15 and is being held without bond on attempted murder charges. He is currently jailed at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, ABC 10 said.
He had been living in the downtown Miami apartment for a week, Jones’s family added.
“If and when she wakes, she will need extensive care and rehabilitation,” the GoFundMe page added. “Please help her any way you can. Even if just with prayers.”
Mitchell claimed he acted in self-defense after Jones allegedly came at him with a knife, according to a Miami police report obtained by NBC Miami. It’s not clear if he has an attorney.
A Miami Police spokesman, Lt. Freddie Cruz, told the Miami Herald he didn’t have any more details on the attack due to conflicting statements from both parties.
“There are conflicting statements, and it’s up in the air if there was a relationship between the two,” he said.
Jones’s mother said she’s still in shock.
Nikolove told NBC Miami, "I can’t comprehend that someone can do this to someone, mutilate them in such a way and try to kill them.
“My daughter’s face is cut up like he was going to take her face off. She has a brain injury and no one knows what the prognosis is.”
