Columbia City Woman Recovers from Jellystone Attack
Posted
Kaitie Vanderpool-
PIERCETON – A 24-year-old Columbia City woman was discharged from a Fort Wayne hospital Tuesday after an Illinois man beat her unconscious during an argument over a campground laundry machine. Her injuries were considered life-threatening when she was transported to Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne Sunday, but Sgt. Chad Hill of the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department said she had been released and had already stopped by the Sheriff’s Department to provide additional information about her attack. According to an affidavit filed by the Kosciusko County Prosecutor’s Office, multi-township EMS was dispatched around 11 a.m. Sunday to Jellystone Campground in reference to a female being seriously injured. Police spoke with the victim’s mother who said her daughter had gone to the laundry facility around 10:30 a.m. and returned shortly after, saying a “guy just bashed my head into the dryer.” Before losing consciousness, the victim told her mother the suspect – later identified as Michael P. Zimny, 54, of Glenwood, Ill. – had asked if she “was a (expletive) man or a (expletive) woman.” After she informed Zimny she was a woman, he threatened to return with a female to “finish the job.” Police located Zimny at his campsite with his wife and daughter, who advised they had problems in the past with people taking their clothes from the dryers and had gone to the laundry facility after Zimny returned to confront the victim, who they thought was a thief. Zimny was arrested on felony battery charges and booked in the Kosciusko County Jail Sunday without bond. After a preliminary hearing, bond was set at $25,000 and Zimny bonded out Tuesday afternoon.
