Grandma beating case moves forward

Express Staff Writer

A Lick Creek woman was indicted yesterday on charges she beat up her grandmother.

A Pike County grand jury charged Marlena Bishop, 31, with first-degree assault on Dec. 22, for beating her 89-year old grandmother, Alice Bishop, with a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument and causing her serious physical injury.

According to family members, Marlena Bishop had gone to her grandmother’s house on Dec. 22 to ask her for money to buy drugs. Her grandmother refused to give her the money, so, later that evening, Bishop went back to her grandmother’s house, entered through the back door and beat her grandmother so badly with a broomstick that she caused four skull-deep lesions, crushed four facial bones and a wrist bone, broke her grandmother’s hand and gave her a hematoma.

Bishop was hospitalized for several days after the incident.

Charmaine Bishop, one of Alice Bishop’s granddaughters, said it took more than five hours for the plastic surgeon to restore her grandmother’s face.

Despite Alice Bishop’s injuries, she remained alert after the incident, and it was she who told police that Marlena Bishop had beaten her.

If convicted, Marlena Bishop faces between 10 to 20 years of imprisonment.