Man gets 50 years in assault

The Daily Inter Lake

A man who is accused of nearly killing his girlfriend blamed his aggression on a prescription drug Monday.

District Judge Stewart Stadler had little regard for Christopher Dyer's explanation for what happened Nov. 28, 2005. He sentenced Dyer to 50 years in prison.

Dyer, 52, said he only punched his girlfriend, Nancy Cohn, twice in the face after a dispute at her house.

But Dr. Betty Kuffel, a friend of Cohn's who was on duty in the emergency room at North Valley Hospital when Cohn arrived, said Cohn was so badly beaten Kuffel didn't recognize her.

Her face was bruised, swollen and cut, Kuffel said. Both her eyes were black and one was swollen shut. There was hemorrhaging in her eyes and her nose was bleeding. Other damage to her eyes indicated strangulation, and there was a red mark around her neck.

Both of Cohn's arms and hands were bruised, indicating defense wounds, Kuffel said.

A CAT scan later indicated that two bones in Cohn's face were broken.

It was the worst case of injury from a domestic assault that Kuffel has seen in 16 years, she said.

Cohn testified that she had known Dyer for about two months.

On Nov. 27, Dyer went to her Evergreen home for dinner. They had some wine and watched television.

"He was picking on me. He was telling me there must be something wrong with me because I never married," Cohn said.

She called her mother and Dyer "got on the phone with her and acted all nice and sweet." Despite the late hour, Cohn talked to her mother from inside her bathroom for a while.

When she hung up, Dyer was in her bed.

"I told him, 'I don't want you to stay here. I want you to leave. He just ignored me."

She watched television for a while and stripped the comforter off her bed, so that Dyer would get cold and go away.

She finally went to bed and again told Dyer to leave.

Instead, he got up, walked around the bed and started hitting her.

"I liken it to a boxer in the ring," she said.

The blows knocked her backward on the bed. Dyer paced around and said, "'Look what I've done. I'm going to go to jail. I just snapped,'" Cohn said. Dyer told her to tell people her injuries were from hitting a tree.

Then, he grabbed a bathrobe belt and got on top of her, trying to bind her wrists, she said.

"He started hitting me again," Cohn said.

Dyer trapped her elbows with his knees and tightened the belt around her neck.

"I could not breathe at all. I went unconscious. I thought I died," Cohn said.

She lost control of her body functions and vomited on the bed when Dyer released her.

"There was blood all over me," she said.

Dyer made her take a shower. Then he put her in her unheated guest bedroom. Naked, wet, and cold in the dark, Cohn huddled in the room when Dyer told her, "'Don't come out or I'll kill you,'" she said.

"He kept me in there for three hours."

Dyer washed Cohn's bloody clothing and bedding. He apologized. He talked about making her injuries look like an accident. When "he fiddled with the woodstove," she feared he would burn down her house with her locked inside.

Dyer brought in a gun from his truck and loaded it in front of Cohn. He talked about a murder/suicide. Then he decided he was going to go home and kill himself, Cohn testified.

He wrote out a will, leaving everything to Cohn, and then he left.

Cohn drove herself to the hospital.

Dyer, though, has a very different version of what happened.

Jailed since the incident, he appeared in court in a dress shirt and jail sweat pants.

He blamed Cohn, saying she frequently hit and kicked him.

"I sat her down and said, 'Hey, let's just not have this kind of behavior,'" he said.

He made insinuations about Cohn's lifestyle.

As for his own, Dyer said he's not a violent man.

"I've never hit anybody in my life," he said.

He said that Cohn "whacked me in the eye. It hurt," Dyer said. Later, though, he said, "She didn't hurt me. She couldn't hurt a fly."

It was the sedative Halcion that sent Dyer into a rage, he said.

"I was ballistic … I still can't believe I did it. I was absolutely in no control of myself when this happened. I've never done anything like this before," Dyer said.

He also said he had never drunk as much wine as he did that night.

Ettie Rosenberg, a specialist in pharmaceutical law, testified by phone that Halcion can make people aggressive.

She believes that Dyer was under the effect of the drug when he was awakened, essentially suffering from a mental disease or defect, and could not understand or control what he was doing.

Dyer's attorney, Sean Hinchey, said that Dyer doesn't have a history of violence. Hinchey asked Stadler to sentence Dyer to a mental-health facility for five years, with a suspended sentence to come after that.

Deputy County Attorney Dan Guzynski recommended a 50-year sentence and asked Stadler to consider the effect the crime still has on Cohn.

"This was a tremendous assault this lady. It almost cost her her life," Guzynski said.

"The damage this man did to me will be with me the rest of my life," she said.

She is in constant fear, to the point that she not only keeps her home locked, but has had a lock installed on the office in which she works. A packed suitcase is in her car in case she has to leave quickly, she said.

"Not a day goes by that I do not relive this," Cohn said.

Stadler discounted the idea that Dyer's action were caused by Halcion. He's not convinced Dyer even took the medication before the assault.

"Your credibility is none … You have had the propensity to say whatever you think somebody wishes to hear.

"I'm not sure this court can rehabilitate you or reintegrate you back into society," Stadler said.

He sentenced Dyer to 20 years for aggravated kidnapping, 10 years for aggravated assault, 10 years for assault with a weapon, and 10 years for tampering with evidence.

Dyer may have no contact with Cohn.