(Memphis) A mother and son are in jail for the brutal beating of a Binghamton maintenance man.

Witnesses say many others are responsible for the attack that left James Payne with severe facial injuries.

Friends say Payne is going to need plastic surgery to reconstruct his face and he is lucky to be alive.

He got caught in the middle of dispute between a landlord and her tenants.

“I see that blood in the driveway. That was kind of surprising,” said Norman Johnson, who is the father of the woman in jail.

He came to the Binghampton house to move out Pamela Johnson’s stuff.

“They just began beating and stomping him senselessly, like an animal,” said Landlord Demetris Washington.  “That`s what happened.”

Washington says she was not renewing the mother and son’s lease so tension was high and when she showed up to fix a maintenance issue the son, Ron Hunter, got violent.

She says her maintenance man protected her and got the brunt of it.

“He was attacked by the tenants with metal bats and crow bars,” said Washington.  “We don`t know what is going to happen with his eyes. He was stomped in his face and on his head!”

Washington says even neighbors joined-in on the beating.

We read the affidavit to Norman, explaining what his daughter, Pamela Johnson, is accused of doing.

“Suspect Johnson repeatedly kicked him in the face,” read Reporter Sabrina Hall.

“No. That’s a lie.”

“Victim Payne says he was beaten with a bat, bricks, a pipe and kicked ,” read Hall.

“That`s a lie,” said Norman again.

But blood on the Bingham driveway shows something brutal happened there.

Norman says his daughter is not to blame, but her husband, “He had called me to tell me that Pam was in jail but he said he beat the (bleep) out of him.”

“So is he in jail?” asked Hall.

“No,” said Norman.

We checked arrests records and it appears that Pamela Johnson’s husband has not been arrested for this crime.

She’s in jail however a $100,000 bond.