An argument about a puppy sparked a bizarre and violent confrontation near Galveston that left one man naked and tied-up alongside a country road.
David Franey woke up in a ditch Thursday night with multiple fractures and barely a stitch of clothing. After managing to secure help, the 47-year-old La Marque resident has been confined to a trauma bed at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) ever since.
"He knocked me out, tied me up, tried to hang me once or twice . . . Then he took me out to the woods."
He tells KTRK Ch. 13 that the incident started when his neighbor — a woman his roommate and co-worker James Aron Lee, 31, was trying to date — gave him a puppy. When Lee came home on Thursday, he was upset to find that the neighbor had the dog tied to an extremely short leash to keep it from jumping.
Apparently angry at how Franey handled the puppy situation, Lee waited for his roommate to get out of the shower later that evening and attacked.
"He knocked me out, tied me up, tried to hang me once or twice," the victim recalls. "Then he took me out to the woods."
Still naked after his shower, Franey says Lee ran over him with his vehicle and tied him to a tree before tossing his battered body in a ditch. Franey drifted in and out of conscious for nearly seven hours before mustering the strength to get help.
The following afternoon, La Marque police arrested Lee in nearby Hitchcock on felony charges of assault and unlawful restraint. Lee has been placed in custody of the Galveston County Sheriff's Office; his bond has been set at $500,000. A court date is scheduled for Feb. 6.
A representative with UTMB tells CultureMap that Franey remains at the hospital in fair but stable condition.
David Franey Jr. remains in fair condition after an attack that left him naked and unconscious in a roadside ditch.
