The husband of missing woman Connie Ditto, who was found safe Friday after mysteriously disappearing last week and sending him an odd text message, was booked this weekend for battering her.
Mark Ditto, 49, was charged with assault yesterday, after his 41-year-old wife was located by police with head injuries that investigators believe he inflicted during a domestic dispute.
“Officers found Ms. Ditto and found probable cause to place domestic assault charges against Mark Ditto,” a police spokesman told Fox News reporters on Saturday.
Ditto’s detained husband expressed “shock” over his arrest which followed only days after he launched a public appeal for help in finding his missing mate.
Detectives discovered Connie Ditto at a Virginia motel in “hiding” mode -- allegedly from an abusive spouse -- about a week after she vanished from the couple’s Virginia home.
The assault charges Mark Ditto faces are in connection with an attack thought to have occurred a week before his wife went voluntarily missing. She was additionally granted an emergency Order of Protection.
The accused wife-beater issued a denial from his jail cell yesterday: “I’m totally floored,” Ditto said, insisting instead that Connie Ditto hurt herself during a drunken fall in which he and their daughters attempted to take away her car keys.
“We as a family are very happy Connie was found unharmed,” he added. “I’m very sad and sorry for her apparent health problems. I’m very disappointed by what she’s put her family through and all the people across the country who supported her search.”
This curious case is developing.
