CHICORA — A 28-year-old woman allegedly attacked by her ex-fiancé with a hatchet to the head was left blind in one eye, according to testimony at a preliminary hearing Tuesday.

The hatchet, which Trooper Robert Rottman also described as a “tomahawk,” penetrated the victim's brain. She remains hospitalized following the June 9 incident at her family's farmhouse in Summit Township.

Rottman was the lone witness to testify at the hearing for Dean J. Law, 29, of Apollo, Armstrong County. Afterward, District Judge Lewis Stoughton ordered Law held for trial on all charges, including attempted homicide.

Other charges are aggravated assault, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, trespass, and false identification to law enforcement.

Law remains in the Butler County Prison without bail.

Investigators allege the defendant walked into the home on Bonniebrook Road shortly before 7 a.m., uninvited and unnoticed, and attacked the woman as she slept in her upstairs bedroom. He didn't say a word, according to police, and left.

Several family members were in the house at the time and they eventually found out what happened. One of them called 911.

Rottman, a criminal investigator, went to the home and saw the victim lying on the floor of the living room. An ambulance crew and two patrol troopers were tending to her. “She did have a hatchet/tomahawk that was still protruding from her forehead,” Rottman said on questioning by prosecutor Amanda Scarpo, a county assistant district attorney.

Despite her injury, the woman was able to give police a statement: “She said her ex-fiancé, Dean Law, struck her in the head with a tomahawk,” Rottman testified.

She was later flown by medical helicopter to Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh with the hatchet in her skull. The victim underwent surgery, and the weapon was removed.

In his testimony, Rottman noted the woman “is most likely going to be blind in her right eye. It's still swollen; she can't open it.”

She suffered “severed muscles” in the area of the eye, he said, adding that she “may not ever be able to open it again without more surgery.”

Rottman said while at the house talking to the woman's father outside in the driveway, not long after the incident, he heard a commotion and then someone yell, “There he is.”

The trooper recounted, “I turned around and observed Mr. Law driving toward the house from a field in a red pickup truck.”

The defendant was immediately taken into custody. Rottman said he spoke to Law in the back of the truck.

“I asked him if he was OK,” the trooper testified. “He said, 'Yes, I feel better. I just released some stress.”

Also in the truck was a woman, who Rottman described as a girlfriend of Law's. Police believe she was with the defendant when he drove to the house off an adjacent road through a field.

During his testimony, the trooper recalled what the defendant's girlfriend — who was not charged — told him during an interview.

“When they parked in the field,” Rottman testified, “he said he was going for a walk and he'd be back.” It was not clear how long he was gone.

On cross-examination by Law's attorney, Justin Ketchel of Pittsburgh asked the trooper: “When he left her, did she see a hatchet on him?”

Rottman replied, “She did not.”

Based on evidence in the investigation, police suspect Law walked from the field to the house and went in through an unlocked back door. He went up the steps and allegedly attacked his ex-fiancée, who was in bed.

The victim in a later interview with police recalled seeing the defendant.

“She related to me that she was sleeping on her side, something woke her and as she turned to look up,” Rottman testified, “she saw Dean Law standing over top of her. She was barely able to get his name out or didn't get it completely out, and he swung the tomahawk into her head and walked away.”

When Law returned to his truck, his girlfriend apparently did not ask him where he had been, Rottman said.

While in custody and at the barracks for an interview, the defendant initially allegedly gave investigators a bogus name. Additionally, Rottman noted, the defendant claimed “he didn't know what was going on (and) why's he in handcuffs. It felt like he was dreaming.”

He also denied knowing the victim. But when police showed Law photos of himself with the victim from his Facebook page, Rottman said, he admitted she was his ex-fiancée.

He allegedly told investigators: “I was just playing games with you guys.”

Law subsequently stated he wanted to “plead the Fifth,” Rottman testified. The trooper said he took that as meaning the defendant was invoking his rights against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Police ended the interview.

During cross-examination, Rottman said police have not received results of testing for possible fingerprint and DNA evidence on the hatchet. He also told Ketchel that his client never admitted to committing a crime.

“When you finally found Mr. Law,” Ketchel asked, “was there anything that would indicate that he had just committed a crime?”

Rottman said Law's sweatshirt had what appeared to be “two drops of blood” on the front of it. But he acknowledged that lab tests on that possible evidence are still pending.

After Stoughton ordered the defendant held for court on charges, Ketchel asked the judge to set bond for his client. He argued that Law had no prior criminal record and is not a flight risk.

But referring to the crime as “entirely unprovoked and incredibly, incredibly violent in nature,” Scarpo countered that any bond be no less than $1 million.

Stoughton denied bond, saying his concern was for the safety of the community.

“I'm just worried about a man like Mr. Law, what he's accused of,” Stoughton said, “being out amongst society.”