Chickasha Man Charged For Attacking Woman With Roofing Hammer

Chickasha Police are searching for a man they say attacked a woman with a bladed hammer.

Royce Jarnagin has a history of violence, and police say it resurfaced earlier this week. Now they're trying to track him down.

If the name sounds familiar, it is because News 9 covered the trial of his son, Royce Jarnagin, Jr. A jury found him guilty of killing his infant daughter in 2013. Now, three years later, police are looking for Royce Jarnagin Sr.

Late Thursday afternoon the Grady County District Attorney charges were filed after investigators say he attacked a woman with a roofing hammer. The two are going through a divorce and are separated.

“She just moved in about a month ago, and she’s real quiet, and she’s real nice,” neighbor Charles Harrison said.

Court documents state Jarnagin was "real quiet" too when he hid outside her new home and went after her. She told police "she did not know who attacked her."

Detectives say she had “several lacerations to her left arm as well as a large laceration on the front of her head" and "was becoming incoherent." Documents also state she "had knots around them that were swollen larger than golf balls" and "pain in the back of her head and neck."

A neighbor says the woman doesn't drive and works all the time, which explains why another woman had stopped by to give her a ride to work. That's when authorities believe Jarnagin came out of nowhere with a bladed hammer and attacked her.

Neighbors say it wasn't his first time harassing her, but authorities hope it's the last.

“He was kind of giving her trouble and stuff like that,” Harrison said.

If you know where Jarnagin is, you are asked to contact Chickasha Police.