Jacksonville police charge 4 with abusing mentally disabled roommate

The victim's account reads like a scene from a horror film.

The 20-year-old mentally disabled man living in an East Jacksonville apartment described to police in detail the daily beatings he received at the hands of his four roommates, many times leaving him unconscious.

The two men and two women he lived with have been charged with felony battery after the victim sought out the security guard at the Franklin Arms apartment at 888 Franklin St. for help.

Charles Thomas Egidy, 38, Willie Dennis Howard, 26, Amber Johns, 27, and Ashlee Simpson, 22, were charged with aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, permanent disability or disfigurement, according to police. Simpson was the victim's girlfriend.

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As James Kelvin Collier recovers from beatings that left him with a swollen face and cuts on his back after two month's of abuse, his mother said he is a "good kid" who was taken advantage of.

"They were beating him and knocked him unconscious six times Sunday," Tammi Lynn Collier said.

"She was using him," his mother said of Simpson. "… He thought he was in love."

The security guard at the apartment complex where the man had lived since June 26 called police Sunday night after he came into the office limping and having trouble breathing. Police found the victim shirtless, the left side of his face bruised and numerous marks on his chest, back and buttocks. The man told them the abuse included being punched, kicked and hit with objects such as belts and spatulas.

"The victim said they do this whenever he does not do chores around the apartment or when they get upset with him about some other issue that might come up," the officer said in the report. "The injuries appeared both old and new."

Collier's mother said she was a veteran foster care provider who adopted her son when he was 7. She said he originally had his own apartment at the complex, telling her he was "old enough to take care of my own life."

But she said the others convinced him to move in with them, then abused him and stole his disability check, his food stamp card, even the money he made from mopping and sweeping the complex hallways. One of the four was a "bully" who beat him with a belt and "body-slammed him," she added.

The man's injuries were severe enough that once he arrived at Shands Jacksonville, he was put in a neck brace and transported to the trauma unit.

The victim told police a psychiatrist told him he has the mental capacity of a 7-year-old and is bipolar, according to the report.

clifford.davis@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4207

dan.scanlan@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4549