By: Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A 27-year-old Mannford man accused of beating a 57-year-old male friend in the face, head and shoulders with a rifle at a rural Perkins residence has been ordered to appear in court June 15 on a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
If convicted of the attack, Dakota Bruce Wilbourn could be imprisoned for 10 years to life, due to his prior felony conviction for five counts of animal cruelty in Oklahoma County in 2019, court records show. Wilbourn remains free on $25,000 bond with an order to have no contact with the rural Perkins man.
Wilbourn was arrested at 1:21 pm on May 2 at a rural Perkins residence by Payne County Sheriff’s Deputy Tomm Edwards, who had seen the victim in the Stillwater Medical Center emergency room about four hours earlier, court records show.
The 57-year-old man, who said “he has known Dakota for some time as a friend,” had “severe swelling to his right eye, bruising to his left eye, and swelling in the area of his nose,” along with “a bruise to the left side of his head, cuts, and abrasions to both arms and bruising in the armpit area of the right arm,” the affidavit said.
He told the deputy “he and Dakota had been cleaning brush and storm debris from around the residence,” the affidavit said.
He said “after the two of them were finished cleaning and gone inside the residence, they had been drinking when Dakota ‘just lost it’ and began to strike him in the face and head with the butt stock of an AR-15 rifle,” the affidavit alleged.
He said this started around 10 or 11 pm on May 1 and continued through the night, the affidavit alleged.
He said “Dakota made him open his safe, take the money, and give it to him. (He) stated Dakota would not let him leave the residence all night and the only way he was able to get away was when Dakota fell asleep — and he left the residence wearing only his underwear,” the affidavit alleged.
The deputy said, “When I contacted (him) in the exam room, he was wearing underwear and nothing else. (He) also stated Dakota had fired the rifle near his head several times while (he) was lying on the floor. (He) stated he was afraid Dakota was going to kill him. (He) stated Dakota was still at the residence and he was afraid he was going to steal his motorcycle and other items at the house,” the affidavit alleged.
When the deputy arrested the defendant at the residence with the assistance of Perkins police, Wilbourn claimed the 57-year-old man “had swung at him first and he just defended himself,” the affidavit said.
Two rifles on the bed were taken into custody as evidence, the affidavit alleged.
The deputy alleged in his affidavit that during a pat-down search of Wilbourn, he found a brown wallet that Wilbourn said was his own.
“Dakota (Wilbourn) then asked me ‘where did that money come from?’ Dakota then asked me to leave the money in another wallet he claimed to belong to (the 57-year-old man). I advised Dakota since the money was in his wallet, I would have to leave it there,” the deputy wrote in his affidavit.
According to Oklahoma County court records and the state Department of Corrections, Wilbourn was convicted of five counts of cruelty to animals in Oklahoma City in 2019 and given a 180-day jail term followed by four and one-half years of probation on which he remains.
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