Mom: ‘son tried to kill me with a hammer’

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Jacob Dwight Farren

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November 29, 2012

Mom: ‘son tried to kill me with a hammer’

Christin Coyne CNHI The Weatherford Democrat Thu Nov 29, 2012, 08:00 AM CST

PARKER COUNTY — A Cresson woman severely beaten with a hammer by her son Tuesday night, according to authorities, said she believes her son’s mental illness led to the attack.

Beverly Farren, 54, has 20 staples and 10 sutures to her head and bruises all over her body but says she’s thankful. Thankful to be alive and thankful that the worry of trying to help her son, diagnosed as bipolar, is no longer in her hands.

Jacob Dwight Farren, 30, remained in the Parker County Jail Wednesday evening on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after being located and arrested by deputies early Wednesday morning.

“My son tried to kill me with a hammer,” Farren told a 911 operator in a call shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday from her residence in the 100 block of Brook Drive.

A deputy who talked with the woman at a Fort Worth hospital, where she was transported by ambulance, reportedly observed two lacerations on the top of her head, a laceration to the top of her shoulder, bruising under both eyes and bruising on both arms.

Farren reportedly told the deputy that she and her son were having an argument over his tax return and she was telling him that he needed to get his life together when her son snapped and went into a screaming rage about past issues.

She told authorities that when she told her son to leave and not come back, he came toward her, grabbing her and finding a hammer on the table, Investigator James Allain wrote.

Telling her that he was going to kill her, he hit her on the head with the hammer and “then tried to gouge her eyes out with his thumbs,” the probable cause affidavit states.

She attempted to protect herself but he chased her, she told deputies, adding that he later went into the kitchen and grabbed a kitchen knife, reportedly threatening to kill himself and her because the incident had gone too far.

Farren said she told her son to call for help and he did so.

“I’m so sorry, Mom,” a caller can be heard saying in the background at the beginning of the first call to the Parker County Sheriff’s Office. “Yes, ma’am, I need an ambulance quick.... A woman is bleeding to death. Hurry.”

During a later call, Beverly Farren tells the 911 operator that she needs help.

“He hit me in the head several times and I’m hurt badly,” Farren said. “He is absolutely crazy. He has a hammer. There is no telling what he will do to anybody who stops him. He is trying to kill himself.”

Jacob Farren left the house in her 2007 Suzuki Forenza and was located by deputies around 1:30 a.m. on Goforth Road, according to the Parker County Sheriff’s Office. He was reportedly arrested without incident and a hammer located in the vehicle.

“It was bad,” Beverly Farren told the Democrat Wednesday but added that “God is awesome” and she’s glad her son is going to get the help he needs.

“I’m so thankful that God has spared me,” Farren said, adding that she believes she would have passed out if she’d received one more blow to the head and likely died.

“He’s bipolar,” Farren said. “He won’t take his medication. He just snapped. It was like a different personality. He just said he had to kill me.”

However, she believes when he saw the large amount of blood she was losing, it helped bring him back to reality.

Her son has shown signs of violence in the past but nothing this extreme, Farren said.

“It’s like a living hell,” Farren said of the struggles she and her husband have faced with a son she describes as mentally ill.

“He’s never been able to hold a job more than a year,” Farren said. “He goes from one situation to another situation.”

Because he can’t afford insurance, his driver’s license has been suspended, leading to one thing after another for him and worry for his parents.

“It’s humanly impossible for us to help him,” Farren said they recently told God. “We don’t know what to do.”

They’ve tried taking him to get help and medication in the past, she said, but her son stops taking medication and the problems continue.

“They don’t understand what their sickness is,” Farren said.

The incident has taken things out of their hands and relieved her of much of her worry, his mother said.

“I want him to get help,” Farren said. “He needs help so badly. He cannot function normally.”