BEATING SUSPECT HELD WITHOUT BAIL
Hugh Bolin III is charged in brutal June 10 attack on Carol Armstrong

By: GLENN SMITH

Of The Post and Courier Staff

Originally Published on: 06/19/02

A suspect in the brutal beating and robbery of a North Charleston cleaning woman trembled and winced Tuesday morning as a judge ordered him held without bail.

North Charleston police say Hugh Bolin III, 26, used a wooden tool handle to bludgeon 37-year-old Carol Armstrong on June 10 behind a Tricom Street medical office building that she had just finished cleaning. Bolin allegedly left Armstrong in a pool of blood and stole her car and purse, police said.

Investigators spent three days tracking Bolin from South Carolina to the Canadian border. The unemployed vacuum cleaner salesman was finally arrested Thursday in Fayetteville, N.C. Police escorted him back to North Charleston Monday after he waived extradition. Police are still looking into the possibility that a second suspect was involved in the attack.

As Armstrong's husband and sister looked on Tuesday, Detective Alan Williams handed Magistrate Jack Guedalia photographs of the victim's injuries. Armstrong remains hospitalized in critical condition. She is paralyzed on her left side and has had extensive bleeding on her brain, police said.

"As you can see from these pictures, I don't believe the words 'brutal' and 'savage' can really describe this assault," Williams said.

Williams said Bolin has implicated himself in the crime. Bolin told police the victim scared him when she walked out of the office building shortly before 11 p.m. that night, Williams said.
"I was frightened," Bolin sobbed to the judge. "I just lost it. I lost it."

James Armstrong, the victim's husband, asked the judge to consider the effect the crime has had on his family. Carol Armstrong likely will spend months in the hospital and then require extensive therapy and care. The couple has two boys, ages 4 and 9."I would like you to remember that our family's life is going to change forever because of this," James Armstrong said in a soft, halting voice.

Guedalia denied bail on a charge of armed robbery and set bail at $200,000 on a charge of assault and battery with intent to kill. At the time of his arrest, Bolin was free on $3,000 bail in connection with May arrests for grand larceny and petite larceny. He also has a prior weapons conviction.

Bolin spent much of the hearing staring down, his shackled hands trembling. He wore a quilted gown reserved for inmates placed on_a suicide watch. On his right_arm, which protruded from the gown, was a tattoo of a large_green dragon coiled around a small cat.

When Bolin was stopped in North Carolina on Thursday, he was still driving Armstrong's car, police said. Police say Bolin also used Armstrong's credit card at stores along the Eastern Seaboard during his run.