State News

N.C. Marine corporal charged with attacking his wife

Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown says a Marine corporal has been charged with attempted murder after his wife was attacked with a hammer.

Posted Updated
Marine Cpl. Jonathan Gould, charged with trying to kill wife
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown says a Marine corporal has been charged with attempted murder after his wife was attacked with a hammer.

The sheriff's office told The Daily News of Jacksonville that Cpl. Jonathan Matthew Gould, 24, was charged Saturday. Gould was being under a $1 million bond on Tuesday.

Erin Gould was taken to New Hanover Regional Medical Center with life-threatening head injuries. she remained in critical condition Tuesday morning.

A nursing supervisor could not immediately provide an updated condition Monday morning, but her uncle John Morelli, of Ohio, told the newspaper Sunday that she was stable and responding to treatment.

Investigators say Jonathan Gould called police to say he had been knocked unconscious when he returned home from a late-night job and awoke to find his wife had been attacked.

This year, advocacy groups have attempted to bring attention to what they see as an alarming rate of domestic violence in military families. In the cases of the three servicewomen killed in North Carolina this year, authorities charged two military husbands and one other soldier with whom one victim had a relationship.

In a case from last December, a Marine corporal from Jacksonville, Cesar Armando Laurean, 21, is charged with killing a pregnant comrade who had accused him of raping her. Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach was beaten to death, and her charred remains were found in January in Laurean's back yard. Onslow County authorities are attempting to extradite Laurean from Mexico. He is fighting that.

 

Copyright 2024 by WRAL.com and the Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.