Populatic Pond Incident Leads To Attempted Murder Charge

Police have charged a Harlow Avenue man with attempted murder in an apparent near-drowning in Populatic Pond, but they are continuing to investigate the man’s claims that the apparent victim was acting irrationally and that he was just trying to save her.

At about 10:17 p.m. July 5 police got a call saying someone was drowning in Populatic Pond.

Norfolk Police Detective Nate Fletcher was first on the scene, and he heard a woman yelling, ‘He’s trying to drown me! He’s trying to kill me!”, according to Norfolk Police Lieutenant Jon Carroll.

Fletcher saw a man and a woman wet and covered with muck, and the woman was “crying hysterically” and trying to get away from the man.

The 27-year-old Grafton woman told police the 29-year-old man had tried to hold her head under water, which led to charges of attempted murder, assault and battery, and disturbing the peace.

But the man told police that the woman had been acting erratically, announced she was going canoeing, took a canoe out on the pond and flipped over, and that he was just trying to get her back into shore.

Carroll said police are still probing the man’s account of what happened.