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Charges against an Alcoa man accused of assaulting, abusing and kidnapping a woman and two children were amended and some of the charges were dismissed Thursday in Blount County General Sessions Court.

Herbert Benjamin Ward, 40, Grayson Drive, Alcoa, was originally arrested on May 31 on charges of especially aggravated kidnapping, domestic violence with aggravated assault, felony child abuse and neglect, misdemeanor child abuse and neglect and public intoxication.

The state amended the felony child abuse charge to felony reckless endangerment and misdemeanor child abuse charge to domestic assault before Thursday's preliminary hearing. A charge of violation of bail bond restrictions had also been added against Ward.

After the preliminary hearing was complete late Thursday night, Judge Hugh E. Delozier dismissed the charges of especially aggravated kidnapping, reckless endangerment and violation of bail bond conditions. He amended the aggravated assault charge to a domestic assault charge. Charges bound over to a grand jury included public intoxication and two counts of domestic assault.

Ward was originally booked in on bonds totaling $81,275. By the end of Ward's preliminary hearing, Delozier had set his bond at $2,000. The judge was still hearing two violation of probation charges at press time Thursday night.

Alcoa Police Officers Brett Romer and Matt Caldwell testified that they were at Grayson Apartments on May 31 investigating an unrelated matter when they were approached by a little girl. They said the 11-year-old girl "clutched Officer Caldwell's thigh" and said "don't let him hurt us anymore."

Girl was crying, officers say

The officers said the girl was whimpering and crying. Romer said it was "almost like she was trying to scream but couldn't." They both described the child as frightened and very upset.

Romer said he then saw Ward down the hallway with his eyes "fixated" on the girl. He said Ward told them not to listen to the girl.

"It was almost as if he didn't see us standing there," Romer said of Ward's fixed stare on the girl.

Officers testified that the child said Ward threw her against the door when she tried to leave, choked her mother, pushed her mother down while she was holding a 2-year-old child and told them "he was going to kill them" if they tried to leave.

On the day of the incident, officers reported that the 38-year-old mother was uncooperative and wanted officers to release Ward so he could come back inside and "sleep off the alcohol." She said he had just gotten out of jail and was "doing so good." She told officers several times that everything was "OK," but the 11-year-old girl kept telling her mother to "quit lying for him," according to a police report.

After Romer reassured her that they were there and nothing else would happen, the woman told officers that Ward had hidden her cell phone and had the house keys so they could not lock him out. Still uncooperative, the woman admitted that her daughter's statements were true, the report said.

Once on the stand, the 38-year-old woman said Ward's "beautiful fingers" had caused the scratches on her neck when he bumped into her while getting into a tent that she and her children had built in a bedroom. She denied having bruising and swelling on her neck that Blount County Assistant District Attorney General Ellen Berez pointed out in pictures. The woman claimed it was not bruising, but it was the lighting in the picture.

"If it was that severe, why didn't they take me to the hospital?" the 38-year-old woman said.

The woman said the marks on her neck were "unintentional," they were never held against their will and there were no working phones in the house. She said she never witnessed the 11-year-old girl get pushed into a door and she said she was not holding the 2-year-old child when he bumped into her in the tent. She admitted that Ward had been drinking and was angry.

The woman testified that she told the 11-year-old girl to crawl through her bedroom window to use the neighbor's phone. She said she wanted the girl to call her mother to see if they could stay at her house. She said she mentioned leaving through the window because she "didn't want no more fussin'."

Blount County Assistant Public Defender Tiffany Deaderick argued that there was no severe bodily injuries on any of the alleged victims and said most of the testimony was "hearsay" of an 11-year-old girl who wasn't there. Berez told Delozier that she subpoenaed the child through her mother, since she is a juvenile, but the mother did not bring her to court.

Delozier reminded the court that although he felt there was not probable cause in some of the cases, he was not determining guilt or innocence. He said the state always has the option of taking the charges to a grand jury.