A West Virginia is accused of keeping his wife captive and torturing her for the better part of a decade â€" beating and burning her and even leaving her shackled during childbirth.
Peter Lizon, 37, was in jail Wednesday on $300,000 bond. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Friday on a malicious wounding charge, authorities said.
Investigators said they have 45 photographs showing burns on 43-year-old Stephanie Lizon's back and breasts from irons and frying pans, and scars on her wrists and ankles. Jackson County Chief Sheriff's Deputy Tony Boggs said investigators continue to investigate one of the most terrible cases he's seen.
"This appears to go beyond abuse to what I would consider torture," he said Wednesday.
Shawn Bayliss, Peter Lizon's attorney, said the allegations are "the fabrication of a fertile imagination or a feeble mind, one of the two."
"The alleged victim didn't make these accusations. It was a third party," Bayliss said. " ... Stephanie would say this story is absolutely untrue, and the charges levied against her husband are blatantly false."
The details of the alleged abuse came out after Stephanie Lizon fled July 2 in Parkersburg, which is about 50 miles north, along Interstate 77, of the couple's home in Leroy. She entered another part of the building while her husband was inside Bosley Rental & Supply returning a rototiller and told the staff, "I'm trying to get away from my husband. I just need to hide for a few minutes," one employee told The Associated Press.
The employee declined to give her name, citing concern for her safety and that of her co-workers at the rental shop.
In an office, the wife "seemed pretty calm but kept looking out the window to see if he was looking for her," the employee said.
Stephanie Lizon told the staff she didn't want to involve police, but she accepted the number for the domestic violence shelter and called it, the store employee said. She also called family to ask for money, and the employees gave her cash and called a cab to take her to a Western Union office and the shelter.
The woman was limping and had appeared to have some sort of injury, the store employee said. And while her clothing was clean, she smelled bad. The husband did not come inside looking for his wife and police didn't come until several days later, the employee said.
At the shelter, however, Stephanie Lizon told another woman about the abuse she allegedly suffered at the hands of her husband, a native of the Czech Republic, according to the criminal complaint. The wife said her family was from Alexandria, Va.
Stephanie Lizon's father declined to discuss the case when contacted by the AP. Relatives of her husband didn't immediately return messages.
The criminal complaint said a witness at the Parkersburg shelter provided the following account:
The witness described Stephanie Lizon as "gaunt and filthy," and covered in scars, bruises and burns. She had "mutilated and swollen" feet, a scar in the shape of a clothes iron on one breast, and burns on her back that the victim said came from a hot frying pan.
She said her husband had smashed her foot with a piece of farm equipment, among other things.
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