Decades after she was beaten nearly to death, Brenda Pennington howled whenever a man came near. She was paralyzed from the neck down — she couldn’t speak, feed herself or express any kind of emotion, said cousin Iona Dillard.
But something about men mustered up enough fear in her to let out a shriek, Dillard recalled.
Arlington police found Pennington badly beaten and unresponsive, facedown under her bed at 1632 N. Oak St. in January 1965, said Detective Kevin Norwood.
“There was a lot of blunt force trauma to the head area,” Norwood said, scanning the decades-old police report.
Back in ’65, the detective on the case called it “the worst beating in which the person wasn’t killed that he had seen in 22 years,” Norwood said. No one was ever charged with Pennington’s assault.
Pennington moved to Arlington after her high school graduation because there were few jobs for women in her West Virginia hometown, Dillard said. She also had a fiance that had recently moved to the area. Pennington worked as a punch key operator in Arlington until she didn’t show up for work one day. This was very unusual for her, so her boss decided to check on her. He found her apartment door ajar and called police.
Police arrived and rushed her to the hospital, where she underwent brain surgery and remained in a coma for several months.
When Pennington woke from the coma, she was a “vegetable,” Norwood said, reading from a number of letters family members sent to police over the years. “She lived 43 years as a vegetable. She could not speak or feed herself. She could not walk,” he said.
And she was afraid of men.
“When a male doctor would come near her, she would scream. She didn’t want them touching her,” Dillard said.
Pennington’s mother cared for her until 1989, when her mother died. Pennington was then moved to a nursing home.
Dillard recalled the only time Pennington showed any sign of emotion: It was 1979, when her father died — and she cried. Other than that, the once fiery, blond and blue-eyed young woman was never herself again.
In 2007, Pennington died from pneumonia at age 62.
With her death still fresh on their minds, Dillard said, her family is still seeking closure from the 1965 assault.
Anyone with information is asked to call Arlington police at 703-228-4152.
