Walter Wolford, 66, is accused of yanking the 8-foot-long nylon leash hard enough to snap his wife’s head back and leave red marks around her throat.
A Maryland man has been arrested after allegedly leading his wife, who has dementia, around on a leash at a fair in Pennsylvania, according to reports.
Walter Wolford, 66, is accused of yanking the 8-foot-long nylon leash hard enough to cause his wife’s head to snap back and leave red marks around her throat on Saturday, West Manchester Township police said in charging documents obtained by the York Daily Record.
A witness alerted police to the incident at the York Fair.
When investigators spoke to Wolford’s wife, who was attended to by emergency medical personnel, she appeared deeply confused.
“She was very disoriented, did not know where she was, her own name, and spoke in gibberish,” cops said.
Police said Wolford told them his wife suffered from advance-stage dementia and that when he brought her to the fair last year, she wandered off and was lost for an hour-and-a-half, the Daily Record reported.
So this year, he allegedly decided to use a leash to keep his wife from walking away.
Wolford allegedly told police he had “originally placed the leash around her waist, but somehow it had moved up around her neck and when she walked away from him and all of the slack became taut, he 'gently tugged on the leash so she would stop,'" the documents obtained by the Record said.
Wolford was charged with one count of simple assault.
He was arraigned and released on $5,000 unsecured bail. He is due back in court for a preliminary hearing Oct. 18.
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