Auburn Police reported that on the afternoon of Feb. 15, Theodore Michael Hyde and Kenneth Doyne Johnson savagely beat a man with a croquet mallet because they believed he had sexually assaulted Hyde’s girlfriend two weeks earlier.
They beat him so savagely, police said, the man sustained a laceration to his head that needed seven staples to close, along with a lacerated spleen that may require surgery.
On Feb. 18, the King County Prosecutor’s Office charged Hyde, 44, of Renton, and Johnson, 44, of Auburn, with second-degree assault. Hyde is in King County Jail on $10,000 bail, and Johnson is in jail on $50,000 bail.
As Deputy Prosecutor Mylla S. Dawson told the court at the bail hearings, the duo did not stop beating their victim until another man yelled at them to stop, and then they left him bleeding on a sidewalk.
According to the Auburn Police Department’s Certification of Determination of Probable Cause, here is a summary of what happened.
Dispatch alerted police at 2:18 p.m. Feb. 15 that two men had beaten another man with what appeared to be a bat or a stick and a hammer, near the Spunky Monkey Bar and Grill at 124 2nd St. SE. Dispatch said the men fled the scene in a Honda Accord and were subsequently involved in a hit-and-run accident near the Sun Break Cafe at 22 A St. SW.
Radio traffic soon identified one of the assailants as Johnson, according to the charging documents.According to the charging documents, the responding officer was familiar with Johnson, and he associated him with a motorhome spray painted black that was parked in a lot at 120 1st St. At that lot, the officer found a Honda parked near the motorhome, and when he looked through the vehicle’s window, he saw a croquet mallet on the rear seat.
According to documents, a woman who standing next to the motor home told the officer that she did not know where Johnson was, but she would see if he was in her motor home. She opened the door for the officer, and when the officer called out Johnson’s name, Johnson came out and the officer placed him under arrest, handcuffed him and sat him in the back of the officer’s car.
According to documents, Hyde soon arrived at the scene on foot although at the time the officer was unaware that he had also been involved in the assault.
According to documents, Johnson admitted that he and Hyde had assaulted the man. He said that he and Hyde had learned two weeks before that the man had sexually assaulted Hyde’s girlfriend. the woman standing outside the motor home. When the officer asked Johnson if he had a croquet mallet in the back of the Honda, Johnson indicated yes, but told the officer he was not the one who had assaulted the man.
According to documents, from his bed at MultiCare Auburn Medical Center, the victim of the beating confirmed that the two men had assaulted him, and said that he believed it happened because for 10 days when the woman and Hyde were broken up, he had dated her.
According to court documents, Hyde has prior convictions for harassment (2007) and 2nd degree possession of stolen property
Johnson has 19 warrants for failing to appear and a history of failing to comply with court orders, two of them in 2008. His sheet lists prior convictions for reckless burning (2016), vehicle prowling (2013), taking a vehicle without permission (2010), malicious mischief (2017), criminal trespassing (2017), vehicle theft (2013), domestic violence (2009), and one for domestic violence in Texas.
