Shovel wins out in Madison County duel with crowbar

Ronnie Gene Scogin

By Joe Johnson

An altercation in Madison County between men armed with a shovel and crowbar ended with one of them hospitalized and the other in handcuffs.

The incident happened Aug. 6 when Ronnie Gene Scogin reportedly struck Joshua Stuart in the head with a shovel during an argument.

A Madison County Sheriff’s Office report provides the following information about the incident:

Deputies responded to a location on Fowler Freeman Lane to investigate a woman’s 911 call concerning someone who had been struck in the head with a shovel and was “bleeding out.”

On arrival the deputies found Joshua Stuart lying on the ground, bleeding heavily from a large laceration on the side of his head.

“He turned to look at us and I saw a large flap of his scalp move,” a deputy noted in the report.

“There were what appeared to be skull or bone fragments on the ground in one of the blood puddles.”

The injured man was transported by ambulance to Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center.

A woman at the scene told deputies that Scogin had struck Stuart’s head with a shovel during an altercation in which Stuart had been armed with a crowbar.

She didn’t actually see what happened, but told the deputies that a woman who had witnessed the incident fled upon hearing the sirens of approaching police cars because there was a warrant for her arrest on file.

Scogin left the scene in his truck, which was located after a license plate recognition camera hit on the vehicle on U.S. Highway 29. A deputy found Scogin, a disabled veteran, walking his service dog behind the VA Clinic on 29.

Several rocks of crack cocaine were located in the center console of Scogin’s truck, and he was found in his pants pocket to have glass pipes for smoking crack.

Scogin, 55, was charged with possession of cocaine and drug objects, and also was driving while his license was suspended.

Any charges related to the incident with Stuart would be made after detectives interviewed Scogin, according to the sheriff’s office report.

A woman who witnessed the incident reportedly ran off upon hearing the siren of an approaching police car because an active warrant for her arrest was on file at the sheriff’s office,

To be or not to be. That is the question. Whether it’s noble