FLORA—A Flora woman is in pretty bad shape tonight after a brutal beating over what appears to be a visitation issue.
Melody Hagen Flood, 21, a former beauty pageant queen, had to be carried out of her home on a stretcher last night (Saturday, June 1, 2013) according to sources who provided us with the above photo.
Preliminary investigation has it that the damage inflicted happened like this: Flood and her husband had the weekend visitation for the husband’s 5 or 6 year old son. The couple also has a five-month-old daughter. Melody was on the sofa with the baby and the little boy was playing on the floor when the boy’s maternal grandmother, reportedly Rhonda Sturm, allegedly barged into the home bearing a baseball bat, demanding the boy so she could have a visit with him. When Melody saw the ball bat, she wasn’t really sure what was going to happen but knew it wouldn’t be good; so she threw herself over the boy in order to protect him. Sturm then allegedly inflicted the damage you see here in her attempt to get Melody away from the boy, an attempt at which she was successful. She reportedly took off with the boy, leaving Melody beaten on the floor with the baby nearby, unharmed.
Reports to local police authorities went unresponded to until today, when Melody finally was able to meet with them at the police station. There is no indication of what occurred after that. It’s unclear whether Sturm—who is reported to be related to a law enforcement officer in the area, although that’s not been confirmed—has been arrested. There’s no word on where the little boy is as of this evening.
We will have a follow up to this story in the upcoming issue of Disclosure, on stands a week from Tuesday. Be watching here for brief updates, but be sure you pick up your copy of the print version, as it tells the story in detail; or, simply follow the prompts to get yourself an online membership and read the e-Edition, where the full version of the story in the print version will be made available to you right here on your computer. And remember: you won’t read this in your local media. So if you want to REALLY know what’s going on around you, READ DISCLOSURE.