Brutal assault ends in arrest

WASILLA — A man was jailed Thursday for what troopers described as a serious assault that also included a kidnapping charge.

The disturbance on Kristy Drive in the Fairview Loop area was reported at 7:05 a.m., Thursday. Alaska State Trooper Nathan Duce reports the woman who’d been beaten had gone to a neighbor’s house and the neighbor called for help.

Duce writes in his report that when he got there, the woman had blood on her pants and under her nose, bruising and swelling on her face and marks on the left and right side of her neck and shoulders.

The woman said she’d been dating Jeremiah L. Corbin for four months by that point. They’d gotten into a fight that night and he’d punched her in the face and “all over her head.”

She said he strangled her until she passed out, and after her nose split open he tossed her in the shower, turned on the cold water and wouldn’t let her out for two hours, at times tossing baby powder on her, pouring mouthwash on her head and spraying hair spray in her eyes.

“Corbin appeared to enjoy what he was doing to her,” Duce says in his affidavit.

She told troopers that at some point he brought a gun into the mix, giving it to her and telling her the only way she’d leave the home was if she killed him. She hid the gun in a clothes hamper.

“At one point she was able to run from the residence, but Corbin chased her down and dragged her back,” according to Duce’s affidavit.

Later, she pepper-sprayed him and as he washed the pepper from his clothes she ran off down the street.

The trooper said he checked their home and found the gun in the hamper, the spent pepper spray can and tracks outside leading to a spot in the snow where it looked like there’d been a scuffle, with one person dragged away.

Duce said Corbin talked to troopers and told them the fight had been more mutual than his girlfriend had related. He said she started hitting him first, smacking him in the back of the head, then stabbing him in the arm after he raised it in defense. He told troopers he took 15 to 20 blows before he pushed her away and hit her in the back. He said he shoved her into the shower and she had the cut on her nose when she got up.

“Corbin denied hitting (her) in the face. He denied keeping her at the residence. Corbin denied being in possession of a pistol. Corbin denied being sprayed with mace. Corbin reported he did put (his girlfriend) in a headlock but never strangled her. Corbin denied turning on the water when (she) was in the shower,” according to the affidavit.

Duce’s affidavit details Corbin’s injuries — a knot near his right eye, scratches on the right side of his face, blood coming out of his mouth — but then cast doubt on their origins.

“All Corbin’s injuries appeared to be self-inflicted and caused by his right hand,” according to the affidavit.

Corbin was jailed on multiple assault counts, interfering with a domestic violence report and being a felon in possession of a weapon. The most serious charge is that of kidnapping, which, as felonies go, is in the most serious category Alaska has.

He was jailed at Mat-SU Pre-Trial Facility on $30,000 bail. As of Monday afternoon he was still there, according to jail records.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.