LIBERTY — A 29-year-old Piedmont man faces multiple charges after police said he took a child from its mother and fled in a pick-up truck, ejecting the mother from the truck’s bed along the way.
It was the second time in the last three weeks that a woman had been thrown from a pick-up truck in the county, as a 42-year-old woman was killed after being ejected from a truck bed in Pickens on Saturday, April 16.
According to the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were dispatched to a home on U.S. 178 Monday morning in reference to a domestic dispute over child custody. Deputies said a man had taken a toddler from the home when the child’s mother climbed into the back of the man’s pick-up truck.
Deputies said the man repeatedly spun the truck in an attempt to throw the woman from the truck’s bed. The child was unrestrained in the truck during the incident.
Officials also said the man crashed into the back of another truck while driving west on U.S. 178 near the Pickens County Airport, then drove away from the crash. Deputies began to pursue the driver, who then realized that the woman was still in the back of the truck. At that time, the man sped up, losing control of the truck and running off the road and crashing on Cartee Road near Diamond Drive in Liberty.
The woman was thrown from the truck in this wreck and suffered injuries that required hospitilization. She was transported to Greenville Memorial Hospital.
The driver again fled the scene of the accident before being caught at the intersection of U.S. 178 and S.C. 88.
The child was uninjured in the incident, deputies said, and is in the custody of the Department of Social Services.
According to arrest warrants, Daniel Blaine Muniz, 29, of 406 Timms Road in Piedmont, has been charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature and unlawful neglect of a child or helpless person in connection to the incident.
The South Carolina Highway Patrol has charged Muniz with driving under suspension, driving too fast for conditions, leaving the scene of an accident with personal injury, leaving the scene of an accident with personal damage and a child restraint violation.
Muniz is currently being held at the Pickens County Detention Center awaiting a bond hearing.