BAKER COUNTY, Fla. – A man deputies said was pistol whipped by a Georgia corrections officers is home from the hospital after surgery.
Jeffrey Ledford's fiancee told News4Jax the 56-year-old has months of recovery ahead of him.
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Dwayne King, 37, from the Atlanta area, was arrested in Baker County and charged with aggravated assault after drivers on Interstate 10 called 911 to report seeing a federal corrections officer pistol-whipping a MacClenny man in the fast lane, westbound, near mile marker 330.
Investigators said King attacked Ledford after a road rage incident.
Ledford was treated at UF Health and released after surgery on Friday. His jaw was broken in several places and had to be wired shut.
He now has no teeth on his right side and the rest are loose, and he has staples in his ears.
The 911 calls from witnesses described a frantic scene.
LISTEN: Uncut 911 calls
"I just passed a man who pulled over in front of another car. He pulled up and he got out and he's beating the s**t out of this [man]," one 911 caller said. "He just shot the gun! He just shot the gun!"
But one call stood out from the rest. It was from King (pictured), the man cops are calling the suspect.
"I got a guy who tried to run me off the road. I got his keys here, he's out here bleeding, but he attacked me. If he comes at me again, I'm going to shoot," King said. "I'm going to shoot you man. You better go to your f**king car. I got blood all over me and s**t man. This guy had road rage, I guess or whatever. I guess I wasn't going fast enough for him or something. He cut me off and hit the side of my d**n car."
Investigators have concluded that isn't the real story though.
They said the road rage incident started in Duval County and ended near Macclenny when King hit Ledford's car.
Detectives said the corrections officer attacked Ledford inside his car, beating him with his gun, blood covering the inside of his car, then again outside the car, and fired in Ledford's direction.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators processed the cars last week and collected quite a bit of evidence, including what they think is King's sweat.
"They found a lot of areas on the outside of the vehicle where somebody was perspiring, some wet spots on the vehicle that they were able to swab and try to test to get DNA," Lt. Brad Dougherty, of the Baker County Sheriff's Office said.