Police in Oklahoma have arrested a man accused of throwing a woman off a balcony on the fourth floor of an apartment building.
Tulsa police started receiving 911 calls at around 4:30 am on Saturday, March 18, about a woman who had plunged into the courtyard of Hewgley Terrace Apartments, an apartment complex located near South Houston Avenue and West Seventh Street, Tulsa.
According to a press release by the Tulsa Police Department, firefighters arrived at the scene first and found the woman lying on the ground. Responding officers from the department got there several minutes later.
Police said the unidentified woman had been severely injured by the fall and had sustained multiple broken bones. First responders rushed her to a nearby hospital, where they said she was in critical condition.
Investigators immediately got to work to find out whether the woman had jumped or fallen and learned that the incident was neither a suicide attempt or an accident but that she had been deliberately thrown off the building by a man.
Officers found surveillance footage of the incident showing a man carrying the woman, wrapped up in a blanket, out of an apartment and going toward a common area on the building’s fourth floor.
According to the police, the woman appeared unresponsive as she was getting carried out.
Because it was so early in the morning, no one was in the common area at the time, but the footage showed the man holding the woman in his arms and walking to the edge of a balcony.
The man, later identified by the police as Richard Wallace, then mercilessly tossed her out of the balcony, and she fell to the ground below.
The suspect then quickly retreated from the balcony and went back into the apartment. According to the release, Wallace initially refused to come out of his apartment, but after a brief standoff with law enforcement, he finally opened the door and cooperated with police.
Officers took Wallace into custody on aggravated assault and battery charges.
According to police records, Wallace was taken to the Tulsa County Jail and was arraigned in court on March 24.
