DOCUMENT: Crime

Woman Bites Off Teen's Tongue During Attack

Invader, 16, fled S.C. home after organ was severed

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S.C. Tongue Bite

OCTOBER 21--As she fought off a sexual assault from an intruder, a South Carolina woman bit off her 16-year-old attacker’s tongue, according to a police report detailing the harrowing home invasion.

The 33-year-old victim told South Charleston cops that the knife-wielding teen forced his way into her residence early Friday morning. While grappling with the attacker, the victim was knocked to the floor and punched several times. She told investigators that the assailant declared, “Stop fighting and I won't hurt you.”

The intruder then carried the woman to a bedroom and attempted to remove her shorts, police say. But the victim fought back and kicked the teen in the groin, which incensed him. "Now you have to die!" the assailant said, according to the report.

As the attacker forcibly “shoved his tongue down in her mouth,” the woman “bit...as hard as she could until she heard it snap,” cops noted. The screaming assailant then fled the bedroom, recalled the victim, who told police that when she got off the bed, “the suspect’s tongue was still in her mouth and she threw it on the kitchen floor.”

Upon arriving at the woman’s residence, police discovered blood in the bedroom, as well as the severed tongue (which was placed into a bag of ice). Cops also found a knife in the home’s yard. The victim, investigators noted, had a bruise around her right eye with swelling and scratches on her knee and foot.

Shortly after the attack, the teenager was located at a nearby Waffle House. Cops were dispatched to the restaurant after the suspect’s mother called 911 to report her son “not having a tongue and needing medical assistance.”

Police have identified the attacker as Antoine Tremane Miller, a North Charleston resident. The teenager, who has been charged as an adult, is jailed without bond on felony counts of criminal sexual conduct, assault, burglary, and weapons possession.

Miller, seen in the above mug shot, was treated at a North Charleston hospital, but a police spokesperson declined to say whether the teen’s tongue--which police transported to the hospital--was reattached. (2 pages)