GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – A Texas man has pled not guilty to charges he pistol-whipped a man in Ashwaubenon last month.
40-year-old William M. Woodie is charged with misdemeanor counts of endangering safety by use of a dangerous weapon, battery-use of a dangerous weapon and disorderly conduct-use of a dangerous weapon.
According to the criminal complaint, Ashwaubenon Public Safety officers were called to a Holiday Inn Express around 9:15 p.m. on August 8 for a weapons complaint. They were informed by dispatch that a man struck another man, with the alleged attacker leaving the scene in a large, red truck heading towards the Baymont Hotel.
Officers later were told the truck was parked at the Comfort Inn on Ramada Way, which is near the Baymont Hotel. They were able to locate a man, who was identified as William Woodie, and placed him in handcuffs.
Woodie told police he was, “a dairy farmer from Texas and that he owned farms down there and here in Wisconsin.” He said he was friends with a woman and financially took care of her, explaining to officers that she was beat up a few days before by a man.
The cops were then told that Woodie had been shopping with the woman all day and went back to the Holiday Inn around 8 p.m. Woodie said that this man and her were talking on the phone and that he could hear the man, “yelling threatening things to him during the phone call,” including that, “he was going to kick his old man ass.”
Woodie claims that the man and woman wanted to meeting in the parking lot at Wendy’s so that he could give her some of her personal things back. Officers were told by Woodie that about 15 minutes later, she went over to Wendy’s to talk with him. They spoke for about 2 minutes before she began walking fast towards the hotel.
Sitting inside of his truck, Woodie says that she went past his driver’s side window while he could hear the man yell at her. Woodie then said that the man walked past the driver’s side door of his truck and he, “reached into the window.” Woodie claims he didn’t want to give him the, “chance to attack because he was scared of him, so he hit the man on the side of the head with the butt of his handgun.”
At first, Woodie told officers that he only used his cell phone but later confessed it was a handgun. Woodie says at that point, the man stepped back and, “lunged towards him to try and hit him through the truck window.” Woodie claimed the man yelled he was going to call the cops.
Woodie explained that he put his truck in reverse and drove to the Comfort Inn to figure out what to do. He wanted to hide his guns, so he took a rifle and the handgun used to hit the man with and placed them in his horse trailer parked in the north parking lot of the Baymont Inn. Officers say Woodie admitted that he realized he left another rifle in there, took that with its case, and put it on the southwest corner of the hotel behind some bushes.
The complaint states that officers interviewed the woman involved in the incident. She told the cops that she met Woodie and that he took care of her financially. The woman said that after they met, “they became close but never intimate.”
Woodie had allegedly bought the woman a house, a car and gave her money to live off of. All that began about a year ago.
But two months ago, she met this other man and they, “got hot and heavy very quickly.” Woodie got upset about that and took back the house, the car and no longer gave her money. She was homeless then, and had moved in with her new man.
Last Friday, she told officers, they had a huge fight and he, “put his hands on her and this freaked her out, so she called the police.” The woman stated that no one was arrested and she stayed with him that night but didn’t inform him that the relationship was over.
Earlier that day, Woodie heard that she and he broke up so Woodie paid for her to say at the Holiday Inn through August 9. She had arranged a meeting with her ex in order to get some of her stuff back. On the way back from the meeting, Woodie had been waiting in the parking lot and hit the man in the head and jumped out of his truck.
She said Woodie then pointed the gun at him, causing her to freak out. Then Woodie got in his truck and that’s the last she saw of him.
In a written statement from the victim in this attack, he said he want to meet with the woman to, “talk about being pregnant.” She told the victim that “Matt” (Woodie) was here if he wanted to talk with him. He told officers he knew Woodie was paying for the hotel, so he figured he had to be around.
The victim told officers that he thought Woodie was at the Baymont, and knew she was staying at the Holiday Inn. He claims, “She was trying to get me to go inside to the room.”
As they got to Woodie’s truck, he tells officers he was, “hit in the head with a silver gun.” Then, Woodie allegedly pointed the gun at the victim. He told Woodie, “You’re going to jail, I’m calling the cops.” The gun, according to the victim, was pointed at him the entire time he walked backwards into the hotel.
Officers, according to the complaint, took possession of a loaded Savage 93R17 HMR with a scope, a loaded 45 Sig Sauer 1911 and a 260 Bell & Carlson during a search of both Woodie’s truck and the grounds of the Baymont.
William Woodie returns to Brown County court for a motion hearing on September 27. If convicted of all counts, Woodie faces more than 2 years in prison.
