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Man sliced with scythe at Lakeland motel, deputies say

Daniel Adkins

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Deputies arrested a man they say used an agricultural hand tool in a bloody attack on another man in a Lakeland motel room.

County deputies were on routine patrol around 9 a.m. Friday when they spotted a man at a gas station bleeding severely from his right hand.


He told them he’d been attacked at the nearby Relax Inn at Canada Road and Interstate 40, where he was staying with a woman described by officers as the suspect’s ex-girlfriend.

According to the victim, Daniel Adkins had knocked on their motel room door repeatedly that morning. When the woman opened the door, Adkins knocked her down and began attacking the man with a hand-held scythe.

The victim put his hands up to defend himself and was struck by the scythe several times in the right hand, officers said. He was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Bartlett.

Adkins, 19, was found at the gas station, where deputies say he tried to hide the scythe in a bathroom garbage can. He was identified “due to numerous interactions with the suspect,” deputies wrote.

Adkins is charged with aggravated assault and aggravated trespassing. He is in jail on $1,500 bond.