Husband Opens Up About Wife's Brutal Beating At All-Inclusive Resort: 'I Just Lost It

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

The husband of the Delaware woman who says she was brutally attacked and left for dead in the basement of an all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic is opening up about their terrifying ordeal, recalling the moment he found his wife clinging to life hours later.

"It didn't look like her," explained Chris Daley, talking to NBC's Today about finding his 51-year-old wife, Tammy Lawrence-Daley, after she was allegedly bludgeoned over the course of several agonizing hours.

and recalled searching the Majestic Elegance in Punta Cana for his wife last January, who vanished after heading to the resort's lounge for a snack.

The husband admitted in the interview that he barely recognized his wife.

She was bruised. Eyes were shut swollen,”Daley told Today. “And I just lost it, yelling for people to get help.

It has been months since the attack, and while Lawrence-Daley has largely recovered from her physical injuries, she still lives with the psychological wounds rendered by the assault.

“… I want to get this information out there because women need to understand they can't walk around by themselves,” Lawrence-Daley told PEOPLE. I hate to say that, but it's the truth. What I went through, I would never wish on anyone.”

The mother of two says she was targeted by a man wearing a uniform bearing the resort's insignia.

Lawrence-Daley says she was dragged down concrete stairs, around a corner, and into the crawlspace of an underground piped area filled with 2 to 4 inches of wastewater.

She spent the next 8 hours there, fading in and out of consciousness. Lawrence-Daley told PEOPLE she did not get a good look at her attacker's face.

The man strangled her multiple times, kicked her in the head, and beat her with a club, breaking her nose and one of her hands. She also sustained injuries to her mouth and now has partial hearing loss in her left ear.

It is possible she was also sexually assaulted due to “damage down there,” she told PEOPLE. An external rape kit administered days after the incident yielded no definitive evidence of a sexual assault.

Tammy Lawrence-DaleyTammy Lawrence

As well as speaking to PEOPLE, Lawrence-Daley also told her story to friends in a powerful Facebook post she shared Wednesday entitled “My Story.” “How do you explain to your kids you were almost killed by some random stranger and that 'Mommy is coming home, but I don't look like myself '? How do you look into your parents eyes as they gaze upon your battered face telling them, 'I'm okay, I'll be okay'. Seeing friends break down in tears as they look at you. Everyone asking, 'why?', 'How?' You tell them a story. You recount every detail very matter of fact so that you don't break down, that you stay strong… so they don't see how you are crumbling inside with fear, disappointment, and weakness.”

According to her Facebook post, Majestic Elegance “claims no responsibility for the attack since I couldn't identify the attacker (even though he was wearing a uniform WITH the resort logo and hit me directly in front of the unlocked maintenance room and dragged me down concrete stairs to a basement so that no one could hear or find me.)”

Representatives at Majestic Elegance Resort and the Dominican Republic Police Department did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

Lawrence-Daley tells PEOPLE authorities in the Dominican Republic told her it was unlikely her attacker would ever be identified and brought to justice.