Man Severely Beaten for Pleasing His Girlfriend

Police: Conn. teens misinterpret sex screams, beat man with fists and a bat

Jul 02 2009

By DAVE COLLINS - Associated Press Writer


A 16-year-old girl thought she heard her mother being assaulted by her boyfriend and rounded up some friends who beat him up, only to learn later that the couple actually were having sex, the woman and police said. The girl misinterpreted her mother's amorous screams, and she and four other teens went to her bedroom to help her in the Torrington home on June 6, police Lt. Bruce Whiteley said Thursday.

One of the teens beat the 25-year-old man with a bat and others punched him, police said. He suffered a black eye and several bruises.

The girl, two 17-year-old boys and Dilyen Langdeau, 19, of Torrington, were arrested Tuesday night and arraigned in Bantam Superior Court on Wednesday. Langdeau was charged with assault and conspiracy; the teens face similar counts. The fifth teenager was not charged.

A judge sealed the police report. The names of the girl and the two boys were not released because of their ages.

The 34-year-old woman, Melanie Arnold, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the girl is her daughter. Arnold denied she was screaming, and said her daughter thought she heard a slap and believed an assault was happening. She said the man was slapping her buttocks as part of some "rough" sex.

"Instead of asking what was going on, they assumed and took matters into their own hands," Arnold said. "Now they have to learn a lesson."

The teens knocked on the bedroom door and Arnold opened it, according to the couple, who recently broke up. The man had come to her home, seeking a reconciliation, and the pair had gone into the woman's bedroom to try to work things out. While they were working it out was when the man was slapping her buttocks and she was screaming with pleasure, according to Dick Tracy, a detective working the case.

When Arnold opened the bedroom door the teens rushed into the room and the man, Roger Swanson, said he didn't have a chance to explain himself. He said he tried to get away, but the teens chased him down and started beating him in the house.

He said he knelt down over a chair and tried to protect his face, but got hit in the eye and in the back. He said Arnold covered his back to try to protect him, but the teen with the bat started hitting him in the legs. Then the youths left.

"What if they fight someone else and those guys don't walk away? What if they kill somebody?" he said. "Then they're going to spend the rest of their lives in jail. These kids need to learn, go through the court system and see if you do something to somebody, you see what happens."

Swanson indicated he believed this incident was going to make any reconciliation between him and Ms. Arnold all the more difficult.