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City police arrested 43-year-old James McGill as he tried to flee the 4th Ward housing complex after the beating late yesterday afternoon, Detective Captain Timothy Torell said tonight.
Officers found the wife hiding in a nearby neighbor’s apartment with the couple’s 1-year-old girl and “some very significant facial injuries,” Torell said. “She was extremely distraught and concerned for her two small children, who witnessed the beating.”
One of the childdren is common to both and the other belongs to the victim from a previous relationship, the captain said.
McGill was waiting when his wife returned from work, then “attempted to strangle [her] with some type of power cord, punched her, beat her with a laptop, attempted to wrap her mouth with duct tape and threatened her with a knife,” Torell said.
The woman “fought McGill off for a substantial amount of time and finally managed to slip out of the apartment after locating only one of the kids,” he said.
“She scooped up the child, then ran to a neighbor’s home,” Torell said. “It was only then that we all learned that the victim’s other child fled the home during the assault and ran shoeless for over a half mile to a relative’s home.”
The woman was brought to Englewood Medical Center for treatment. The children weren’t physically harmed, the captain said.
McGill, meanwhile, was being held on $200,000 bail, charged with aggravated assault, criminal restraint, making terroristic threats, weapons possession and two counts of child endangerment.
The case is being referred to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office for grand jury action, as well as to the Division of Child Protection & Permanency.
MUGSHOT: Courtesy ENGLEWOOD PD
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