Did "Sex Scream" Really Lead to Assault?

The story dropped out of tabloid heaven.

A teenager in Torrington, Connecticut, heard her mother scream from a vigorous round of sex and thought an assault was taking place. The teen gathered four of her friends, who proceeded to break into the bedroom and use a baseball bat to beat up mom's lover, leaving him with a black eye and multiple bruises.

The story was so deliciously bizarre that you figured it couldn't possibly be true. Turns out it probably wasn't--at least not all of it.

Mom, 34-year-old Melanie Arnold, was having sex with 25-year-old Roger Swanson. And four teens, at the urging of Arnold's 16-year-old daughter, did indeed take a baseball bat to various parts of Swanson's person. The daughter and three of her friends have been charged with assault and conspiracy; one of the teens was not charged.

But it appears the assault had more to do with sociology than sensational sex.

Our Legal Schnauzer team is committed to bringing you the news in only the most high-minded fashion. So we asked the question that must have been on everyone's mind upon hearing this story: What bedroom techniques was Loverboy employing in order to elicit a screaming response from Mom?

Turns out both Mom and Loverboy say the sex wasn't all that spectacular.

Drat.

Loverboy, er Swanson, said he probably was assaulted because Arnold's daughter resented him and didn't like the fact he was from the "wrong side of the tracks." The whole thing, Swanson said, probably was a setup. Swanson hated to admit that he wasn't doing anything special in the sack.

Drat again. I thought we might learn something valuable here.

The "sensational sex" angle started to fall apart when Arnold said she was only moaning during sex, not screaming. Swanson agreed with his partner's assessment.

So what were the teens really up to? Here's how the Torrington Register-Citizen reported it:

Arnold’s daughter and friends didn’t like Swanson and let him know on previous occasions, he said. Swanson, an avid NASCAR fan, was raised on a farm and works as a farm hand in the Washington, Conn. area. “I guess it’s because I’m a bit of a redneck. Maybe they didn’t like the way I acted or spoke or because I grew up in New Preston,” Swanson explained. A week before the incident the youths chased him out of Arnold’s house.

“When I saw them come in Melanie’s bedroom I thought, ‘Uh-oh, here we go’ and one of them pointed at me and said ‘We got you’,” he said.

The beating was not a pleasant experience, Swanson said:

“It sounded like hail on a car windshield. They were hitting me so much,” Swanson said. It’s been a month, and he said he still feels pain in his back.

Shockingly, Swanson and Arnold are no longer dating. Arnold has asked Swanson to drop the charges against the teens, but it doesn't sound like he's thinking in that direction. Swanson said he hopes the case is a "wake up call" for his attackers:

“I pray to God they ‘get it’ and don’t spend the rest of their lives in jail,” Swanson said. “You just can’t act like this—with violence—this extreme when they don’t like something.”

The worst part for Swanson? Maybe it's this: Rumors about his sexual prowess are dying down:

“I wouldn’t mind the publicity a little longer—maybe the Today show or Katie Couric,” he joked. “I have had a lot of hits on my Myspace, but no proposals yet.”