Authorities say a wife used her body to protect and shield her husband who was allegedly being beaten by his daughter with a bat.
Court documents show on Feb. 23, around 6 a.m., Scottsdale police were called to an apartment near 75th Street and Scottsdale Road for a family fight.
There they found a badly injured older couple, ages 68 and 71, a metal baseball bat and a lot of blood.
Police say the couple's daughter, 36-year-old Gabriela Valencia, came home around 4 a.m. and the father let her into the apartment. He told her that he is too old to be letting her in that late.
After going back to bed, the father heard a noise outside his bedroom door and got up to investigate. Police say that's when he saw Valencia with the bat. They struggled over the bat but the younger Valencia was able to get the bat away and struck the father several times on the head, face and arms.
The man's wife, who uses a walker to get around due to a broken ankle, came to her husband's aid and used her body to cover him as she was yelling for the attack to stop. Valencia also used the bat to hit the mother in the face and head, according to court documents.
The couple told police Valencia also threatened them with a knife. Valencia later retreated to her bedroom and was still there when police arrived.
Police say that during an interview with Valencia she told them, "She wished her parents were dead and then listed the ways she would like them to die."
Police say she also told them she was going to leave the apartment but her parents got in her way, blocking the door with their bodies and the walker. She claimed to feel threatened, and told police she used the bat against her father in self-defense.
She also admitted to police to using methamphetamine earlier that night.
The father suffered a blood clot believed to be the result of a small brain bleed due to the attack.
Valencia is being held without bond on two counts of aggravated assault, and was on felony release from an armed robbery that occurred in November 2015,
