Judge denies bail request in hatchet attack case
A Butler County judge denied a bail request Friday to get out of jail from a man accused of lodging a hatchet in his ex-fiancee's head.
Dean J. Law, 29, of Apollo, Armstrong County, was arrested June 9 at a farmhouse in Summit Township while police were tending to a woman who had a hatchet lodged into her forehead. Authorities charged Law in the attack, and he was immediately placed in Butler County Prison. Originally, District Judge Lewis Stoughton denied Law's bond, and on Friday Judge William Shaffer saw no reason to accept the request to set bail made through Law's lawyer, Justin John-Earl Ketchel.
The hatchet, which Trooper Robert Rottman previously described as a “tomahawk,” penetrated the victim's brain. The victim was hospitalized following the June 9 incident at her family's farmhouse in Summit Township and was recently released from the hospital, according to Assistant District Attorney Mark Lope, who is prosecuting the case. The victim was left blind in one eye, according to previous court testimony.
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