Woman Beats 7-Foot-3 Sexual Offender with a Baseball Bat

Shortly after seeing a flyer that a registered sex offender, a man that she recognized, had moved into her Puyallup, Washington neighborhood, Tammy Lee Gibson beat him with an aluminum baseball bat.

William Baldwin, classified as a Level 3 sexual offender, was beaten inside his own home. In a report by ABC News, Baldwin recalled how Gibson had picked up the bat and

all of a sudden just started hitting me…She was hitting me like a man who would beat someone with a bat.

“I kept swingin’ and swingin’ and swingin,’ Gibson told police, after her arrest for the assault on the 7-foot-3 sex offender. Baldwin was hospitalized after the assault and suffered a broken arm. His prior record of child molestation assured Baldwin a “Level 3” status, defined as a high probability of repeat offenses. ABC News reported that Baldwin was

originally convicted of first-degree child molestation for an incident in which he forced a 5-year-old girl to touch his penis during a game of hide-and-seek. While on parole for that incident, Baldwin lured another 5-year-old neighbor into a backyard doghouse and touched her vagina.

Because of his Level 3 status, the police were required to notify the residents of Puyallup that Baldwin had moved into their neighborhood. They distributed fliers detailing Baldwin’s conviction for child molestation. Gibson saw the flier and immediately recognized Baldwin as the man that she had seen talking to her 10-year-old daughter last July 4. This realization, according to Gibson, had made her “snap.” Gibson immediately located Baldwin, who had moved in with his uncle in a neighboring town, accused him of molesting her daughter, and attacked him with the bat. Although Gibson later admitted to police that Baldwin never molested her daughter, she said the very thought of it had made her “crazy.” But she is not sorry for her actions. According to ABC News, Gibson said that, “if I had to do it again, I would do it again. The picture in my head of him talking to my daughter in front of my house scared me." Gibson was arrested on felony assault and harassment charges and is being held on $15,000 bond. After the assault, Baldwin was arrested for failing to register as a sex offender at his new address and is being held on $20,000 bond. They are being held at the same jail.