Wichita man choked girlfriend and beat her with a baseball bat. Now he’s going to prison
A 44-year-old Wichita man has been sentenced to six years, two months in prison plus an additional year in jail for attacking a girlfriend in 2020.
Wichita police have said Kenton Thomas Grubbs Jr. strangled the woman, beat her repeatedly with a baseball bat, battered her and threatened her life on Oct. 28, 2020. The woman told police she and Grubbs had been dating for about six months when he went to her east-side home and attacked her in a rage because he thought she had been unfaithful, according to a probable cause affidavit released in the case.
Officers found the woman naked, bloodied and “curled up in the fetal position on the snowy, icy ground” between her back steps and air conditioning unit. She told police that Grubbs told her “you are going to die today” and that he hit her head with the baseball bat, punched and kicked her, dragged her around by her hair, stuck fingers in her eye and mouth to force her around, and twisted her neck so hard she thought it had broken, the affidavit says.
Neighbors told police the woman tried to crawl under her porch steps to escape. She was hospitalized for serious but survivable injuries, police said previously. The Eagle is not naming her or giving her exact address to protect her privacy.
When officers tried to arrest him, Grubbs fought back and had to be subdued with a taser, according to the affidavit.
Asked why the woman was covered in blood, Grubbs told police she “is clumsy” and fell and hit her head on the refrigerator, the affidavit says.
Grubbs pleaded no contest on April 10 to one count each of aggravated battery, aggravated domestic battery, aggravated assault and misdemeanor battery against a law enforcement officer. Originally, prosecutors charged Grubbs with 10 counts but the rest were dismissed as part of his plea negotiations, court records show.
At his sentencing hearing Thursday morning, Sedgwick County District Judge Tyler Roush followed Grubbs’ plea agreement and ordered him to serve 50 months in prison for the aggravated battery count plus a year for each of the other crimes, said Dan Dillon, a spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office. Grubbs must serve the terms consecutively, or back to back.
Anyone in an abusive or dangerous relationship can seek help by calling:
- 911
- Harbor House Domestic Violence Shelter, 316-263-6000
- Wichita Family Crisis Center, 316-267-7233
- Wichita Area Sexual Assault Center, 316-263-3002
- StepStone, 316-265-1611
- The National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233
