The woman initially spoke with police at her home but later could not speak at the hospital, according to local reporting.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Memphis woman who was critically injured in an alleged attack by her adult son managed to identify him to investigators at the hospital even after she was no longer able to speak with police, according to reports based on an arrest affidavit.
The hospital identification is one of several pieces of evidence described publicly in the case against 27-year-old DeAngelo Billingsley, who was charged with attempted second-degree murder and domestic assault after the Sept. 5 confrontation. Before being transported from her Whitehaven home, the woman told first responders that an argument with her son had turned violent. Police say Billingsley later gave investigators his own account of taking an aluminum baseball bat and striking his mother after the two struggled over it. The woman was reported in critical condition after arriving at the hospital, but authorities have not released a verified later update about her recovery.
Local station WMC reported that officers were called to a home on Bonita Avenue and found the homeowner with a serious laceration to her forehead. At that point, she was able to tell first responders what she said had happened. According to the arrest affidavit, she described an argument involving Billingsley and the fact that she had not cooked food for him. Police say the disagreement quickly became a physical confrontation. Her account provided officers with an early narrative while emergency personnel were dealing with an injury that local reporting later described as requiring lifesaving treatment.
What happened after the woman reached the hospital added a second stage to the identification process. WMC reported that she could no longer speak with investigators there, but when officers showed her a photograph, she indicated that Billingsley was the person responsible for her injuries. WREG separately reported that she identified Billingsley while hospitalized. The reports do not detail the precise procedure officers used, how many photographs were shown or whether the identification was recorded. Those unanswered questions do not negate the reported identification, but they are details that would matter if the identification process later becomes an issue in court.
The mother’s account also described a struggle over the baseball bat before she was struck. Police allege that Billingsley came into her bedroom or moved toward her with the metal bat, after which the two fought for control of it. Authorities say he overpowered her or regained possession and hit her in the head. The publicly available reporting does not describe repeated blows, and it would be inaccurate to add them. It also does not identify other injuries beyond the forehead wound or provide a detailed medical diagnosis. The central verified point from the early reports is that the injury was serious enough for police and local reporters to describe her condition as critical.
Investigators say Billingsley’s own statement added support to portions of his mother’s description. Court documents quoted in early reports say he acknowledged getting an aluminum bat from his room and moving toward his mother with it. He also allegedly told investigators that they fought over the bat and that he eventually regained control before striking her. Police said he linked the start of the altercation to the food dispute. A defendant’s reported statement is an important part of an investigation, but it does not itself decide a criminal case. The statement’s admissibility, context and significance can be challenged or tested as a prosecution develops.
Billingsley was detained in connection with the incident and taken to a police station before being booked into the Shelby County Jail. Early reports said bond in the new case was set at $50,000. The total amount reported for his detention was $52,000 because of an additional $2,000 tied to an alleged bond violation in a separate 2024 matter. The newer charges included attempted second-degree murder and domestic assault causing bodily harm. Authorities did not announce a conviction, and the charging documents represent accusations that prosecutors would still have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt if the case goes to trial.
The earlier case provides a separate piece of procedural background. WMC and WREG reported that it also involved Billingsley’s mother, who had accused him in 2024 of breaking the windshield of her vehicle after she put him out of her home. Reports said the $2,000 portion of the September bond total related to a violation of conditions from that case. Court records reviewed by WMC indicated that Billingsley was living with his mother at the time of the September 2026 arrest. The reports do not establish the final disposition of the 2024 allegation, so it should not be described as a prior conviction or used as proof that the newer accusations are true.
The fact that the new case involves allegations between relatives also shapes how police and courts describe the accompanying assault charge. The reporting identifies the alleged victim as Billingsley’s mother and says the two were living at the same residence. Beyond those facts, little reliable information has been made public about their household or relationship. No responsible conclusion can be drawn about how long they had lived together, the reasons for the living arrangement or what happened between them outside the incidents described in court and police records. Those matters remain outside the confirmed record available for this story.
The most striking feature of the early investigation is that police said they obtained accounts from both participants soon after the confrontation. The woman gave her statement before her condition prevented further spoken communication at the hospital. Billingsley, according to police, later described taking the bat and striking her. Those accounts reportedly overlap on several major points, including the argument, the bat, the struggle and the blow to the head. That overlap is likely to be significant to investigators, but the public has not seen all of the underlying evidence, and the defense has not been shown in the reviewed coverage presenting its own account of the allegations.
Some evidence that often appears in violent-crime prosecutions has not been described publicly in this case. The reports reviewed for this article do not say whether investigators photographed the interior of the home, recovered clothing, collected biological evidence, examined the bat for fingerprints or obtained surveillance footage from the area. They also do not identify any independent eyewitness. That does not mean such evidence does not exist; it means only that the early public reports do not establish it. Keeping that distinction is important because arrest affidavits are generally written to establish grounds for charges, not to provide a complete account of every piece of evidence investigators may eventually gather.
There is also no reliable public update in the reviewed reporting establishing what happened after Billingsley’s initial court proceedings. Law&Crime reported on Sept. 8 that he was scheduled for a bond hearing the following day, but searches through Oct. 20 did not locate a dependable report confirming a later bond ruling, indictment, plea or trial date. Likewise, no verified report located in that search gave a new medical status for his mother. Those gaps leave the case at an early procedural stage in the publicly documented record, even though additional activity may have occurred outside the coverage available online.
For now, the prosecution rests publicly on allegations in the arrest records and the statements attributed to Billingsley and his mother. The woman survived long enough to speak with first responders and later identify her son at the hospital, while Billingsley was arrested and charged with serious felonies. His guilt or innocence has not been adjudicated, and any later court filing or medical update could materially change the public understanding of the case.
Author note: Last updated Oct. 20, 2026.