Arrest in Wills Point Beating

WILLS POINT — Wills Point police have arrested 21-year-old Jonathan Coffman in connection with the beating of C.D. Whittington. KETK reports Coffman is from Wills Point and was arrested on a parole violation warrant for narcotics Tuesday morning. Police are in the process of getting a felony warrant for aggravated robbery. Coffman is in custody in Van Zandt county. Coffman was picked up in Myrtle Springs, another Van Zandt town.

And there’s more to the story. Police say Whittington was badly beaten and left for dead — and the family now says the attacker also beat up his own girlfriend. Additionally, the reported girlfriend is suspected of an earlier encounter with Whittington, an 89-year-old World War II veteran. Whittington tells police he was getting ready for bed on Friday night when a young man knocked on the door and asked for money and prescription pills. The young man allegedly began beating Whittington and eventually left him for dead after Whittington told him he had no money and no pills.

Whittington says when the attacker arrived, he told Whittington a woman was supposed to meet him there. Now the family says that woman, whom they say is the girlfriend of the attacker, came to them after allegedly being beaten up herself by Whittington’s alleged attacker. The family also says the woman actually tried to rob Whittington hours earlier that same day. They say she and another woman knocked on Whittington’s door asking to borrow money from him. When Whittington went to get his wallet, he believes the women tried to get into his file cabinet. Whittington says he asked the women to leave and didn’t think anything of that incident until the young man arrived later that night.