From the Cleveland Daily Banner: "Help me, he's gonna kill me!" a Cleveland woman screamed as deputies from the Bradley County Sheriff's Office
From the Cleveland Daily Banner: “Help me, he’s gonna kill me!” a Cleveland woman screamed as deputies from the Bradley County Sheriff’s Office came to her door.
The deputies, who were responding to a 911 call the woman had made in secret, “immediately entered the residence” and handcuffed the woman’s husband, Mark William Peppler, 37, after seeing her with “a bloody mouth and blood on her clothing,” an arrest report states.
Peppler, who was arrested on Tuesday, Jan. 23, has been charged with attempted second-degree murder, aggravated domestic assault, child abuse or neglect (violent) and interference with a 911 call.
Examining the victim, deputies found she had “blood around her nose and mouth” as well as “red marks on her throat” and on her forehead, the report says.
According to the victim, she and her husband were engaged in a verbal dispute at a local restaurant in the evening of Monday, Jan. 22, while having dinner with their two children.
Upon returning home, they separated, with Peppler in the bedroom and his wife in the living room. While in separate rooms, they sent multiple text messages to one another before Peppler’s wife blocked his number.
From there, the report notes she entered the bedroom to let Peppler know “he needed to go to the couch while she slept in the bed.”
Peppler then, allegedly, “threw [his wife] off the bed onto the floor and then punched her in the face.”
During the physical altercation, Peppler “choked her until she was unconscious approximately three times,” the report says his wife alleges.
“He then took the phone from her when she threatened to call the police,” the report says, adding the victim says it was an hour into the physical confrontation when their youngest child began to cry.
Asking her husband if she could go to their child, she brought the youngster to the living room where she says the assault continued as she held the child.
Unbeknownst to Peppler, she had grabbed a spare phone and dialed 911 before hiding the phone with her on the couch, leaving the phone call active as an open line.
Peppler then punched his wife several times on the couch as she held their child before throwing her against a wall and onto the floor.
“At some point in the fight, Peppler told her she should kill herself and proceeded to load a Smith and Wesson M&P shield 9mm with five live rounds, putting one into the chamber,” the report states.
According to the arrest report, the woman’s open line 911 call was recorded, and the recording captured “a male stating he’s going to ‘blow her head off,’ a child crying, a male telling someone to ‘pull the trigger,’ a male talking about shooting someone/something [and] a female saying ‘hurry.'”
In her account of events, the victim says her husband tried to get to their eldest child, who was inside her own bedroom. BCSO “deputies observed a damaged door leading to [the eldest child’s room], a lamp turned over onto Peppler’s bed and [the wife’s] blood … splattered on the [youngest child’s] face.”
When Peppler was taken into custody by the BCSO, his wife was advised by Bradley County EMS to go to a hospital because of her injuries. The report notes her parents came to the residence to watch her children while she received care.
She was also advised she could take out an order of protection against her husband.
Released on a $100,000 appearance bond, Peppler’s next court appearance will be on Feb. 6.
