Woman Awakens From Two-Year Coma, Identifies Brother as Alleged Attacker

A West Virginia woman has woken up from a two-year coma and identified her brother as the man who allegedly attacked her at her home in June 2020.

Prior to this development, per a report from regional outlet MetroNews, the assumption had been that the case in question was going to be left unsolved. This month, however, local law enforcement were notified by someone at a regional long-term care facility that the woman—Wanda Palmer—had awakened.

“The keys to the whole thing lay with the victim herself and with her unable to communicate we were left with nothing,” Jackson County Sheriff Ross Mellenger explained. “Now low and behold two years later and boom, she’s awake and able to tell us exactly what happened.”

Per a separate report from WCHS, Wanda was initially found by her neighbors with “serious head injuries,” with arriving law enforcement later adding that she had seemingly been hit over the head and in the face “with an object that caused lacerations.” Law enforcement have speculated that the object allegedly used by Daniel Palmer, who has now been arrested after being identified as the suspect by his sister, was either a machete or a hatchet.

In a recent news release shared to social media, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department said Daniel Palmer, 55, had been arrested and charged with attempted murder and malicious wounding in connection with the 2020 attack. According to police, Wanda had been “attacked, hacked, and left for dead” by her brother.