A Pulaski County man accused of kidnapping and beating his pregnant ex-wife after a custody visit during the Father's Day weekend was arrested Tuesday.
Samuel Maness, 28, who is currently on parole after several domestic battery convictions in Perry County, was arrested in Little Rock and charged with kidnapping and first-degree domestic battery and was booked in at the Pulaski County jail more than a week after the mother of his two children told authorities that Maness forced her into a car and held her several hours against her will.
After his arrest, he "denied all allegations and became belligerent to a point that he had to be restrained" by detectives, arrest reports said.
According to Maness' ex-wife, Megan Wright, the occurrences began when Maness called her "and made her feel guilty" about not being able to make his supervised visits in Perryville with the pair's two children because of parole restrictions that don't allow him to leave Pulaski County.
Wright agreed to drive the children to visit him in Pulaski County. Since Maness is currently residing at a drug treatment center, they met at the Maumelle house of a friend of Maness' on June 14, the day before Father's Day.
She stayed the night there, and when she said she needed to go back on Sunday, Maness persuaded her to drop their children off at his father's because they needed some "alone time," arrest affidavits said.
Wright, who is 38 weeks pregnant with another man's child, was "feeling uneasy" about the plan -- the pair had a violent history that included a beating with a two-by-four that left her in a hospital for six weeks -- but she agreed to stay with him again at his friend's house, the affidavit said.
On that Monday morning, she woke up and told him she needed to pick up the children, and Maness "told her that he was not going to work and she was not going anywhere," the affidavit said.
She tried to leave on her own, and he "grabbed her by the back of the neck" and pulled her from her car and grabbed her keys, investigators noted.
He then took her phone, according to detectives, and forced her into the passenger seat of her car and then drove her into Little Rock. Investigators said Maness drove her all around, going through Mayflower, into Perry County and back again.
At one point, he stopped at a doughnut shop drive-through window, and Wright tried to use the opportunity to get help by yelling to the clerk, according to affidavits.
Maness became enraged, according to affidavits, and sped away from the restaurant and started beating her, "pulling her head down toward the center console" where he hit her repeatedly in the face with his closed fist.
Wright, affidavits said, "did not fight back but remained in a fetal position ... in an attempt to protect her unborn child."
Eventually, he stopped at a Days Inn hotel at 7200 Bicentennial Road and forced her to rent them a room, investigators said.
Wright waited for Maness to fall asleep, according to investigators, and then grabbed her keys and fled for help.
After interviews, detectives obtained arrest warrants Monday and were able to arrest Maness on Tuesday at his construction job, sheriff's office officials said.
In addition to a parole hold, Maness was being held at the Pulaski County jail Wednesday night with bail set at $250,000.
Metro on 06/26/2014