Wichita man who hit woman’s head with a hammer and stole her phone dies in prison

A Wichita man who was acquitted of attempted murder but found guilty of aggravated robbery for stealing a hammer he used to hit a woman in her home has died in prison.

Bobby Dee Edwards, 44, died Sunday at the El Dorado Correctional Facility. Kansas Department of Corrections officials announced his death in a news release on Tuesday.

He was pronounced dead by prison staff at around 2:15 a.m. The inmate’s cause of death is pending an autopsy, but it is not believed to be COVID-19 related. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation and KDOC are investigating.

Edwards was a maximum-custody inmate serving a 247-month sentence for a 2011 conviction for aggravated robbery in Sedgwick County. Prison records show his earliest possible release date was Sept. 1, 2027. He also had previous convictions of attempted first-degree murder, criminal possession of a firearm and burglary from a 1995 case.

He is also listed on the KBI’s sex offender registry for a 2005 conviction of indecent exposure in Okmulge, Oklahoma.

Sedgwick County District Court and Kansas Supreme Court records detail his 2011 conviction.

The narrative in the Supreme Court’s record begins on the evening of Sept. 15, 2008, with a call to Wichita police. Edwards had reportedly punched out a store window, was stumbling around in the streets, was trying to tear down road signs and was making obscene gestures to passing vehicles.

He was taken to an Ascension Via Christi hospital, where his blood-alcohol concentration tested at 0.375 — more than four times the legal limit to drive. The drunk man fought with and spat on medical staff, who sedated and restrained him.

He was released sometime around 6:30 a.m. Sept. 16 after medical staff determined he was clinically sober. He left the hospital still wearing the scrubs, walking steadily and speaking without slurring his words.

At around 7:30 a.m., he knocked on a neighbor’s apartment door.

The woman who lived there was wearing her pajamas when she answered, assuming her boyfriend who had just left for work had forgotten his keys. She recognized Edwards, as she had previously let him borrow her cellphone to make a call.

He again asked to borrow her phone, so she shut the door and went to get her phone from the couch. When she turned around, Edwards was right behind her. She gave him the phone, but said he had to go outside while making the call.

Edwards took the phone and put it in the pocket of the hospital scrubs he was wearing. He picked up a hammer, which the woman had been using to take down pictures, from a nearby table.

Edwards pushed the woman into a chair and swung the hammer, striking her in the head with the flat end of the hammer.

The hammer flew out of his hand. He searched for it as the woman struggled to escape a choke-hold.

“(She) took advantage of her martial arts training and the fact that her head was slippery with blood from the hammer blow and was able to free herself from his grip,” Supreme Court justices wrote.

Her phone had fallen out of Edwards pocket and was lying on the chair. She started to dial 911, but couldn’t complete the call before he wrestled it away.

“Rape!” the woman started shouting.

Edwards told her he didn’t intend to rape her and that he just wanted to find the hammer so he could take the “evidence” and leave. He also apparently threatened to kill her if she wouldn’t give him her keys.

She tried to go upstairs, but Edwards found the hammer in a vase. He hammered her head a second time, knocking her back into the chair. She tried to kick his groin several times, but couldn’t stop the attack.

Edwards swung the hammer again.

This time, the woman blocked the blow. Edwards lost his balance and dropped the hammer in her lap. They each grabbed one end of the weapon, and the fight continued.

The woman’s 6-year-old son started crying. Edwards left with the hammer and the phone. A neighbor called police.

Edwards returned before police arrived, asking to be let back inside so he could get a bag he had dropped. He left after he was warned that police were on their way.

The officers found the phone, which was covered in blood, near a neighbor’s door. Inside the woman’s apartment they found Edward’s wallet and hospital papers inside a plastic bag.

He was charged with aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery for taking the phone and the hammer and attempted murder for the repeated blows to the head. He was arrested two weeks later in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and extradited back to Kansas.

At his first trial, the jury found him not guilty of aggravated burglary, as well as attempted first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder or attempted voluntary manslaughter. A mistrial was declared on the aggravated robbery count. After a second mistrial, a third trial led to a conviction of aggravated robbery. His sentence was on the high end of the sentencing guidelines.

Appeals went to the Kansas Supreme Court, which upheld the conviction.

This story was originally published May 26, 2020 at 11:12 PM.