Deputies say a 24-year-old admitted striking her grandfather’s wife after officers found the older woman bleeding inside a home near Tennessee City.

CHARLOTTE, Tenn. — A 24-year-old Dickson County woman is accused of beating her grandfather’s wife with a bat inside a home near Tennessee City on March 23, leaving the older woman on the floor bleeding before deputies recovered the weapon and made an arrest.

Authorities say the case matters now because it has moved from a rural emergency call to a criminal prosecution centered on an elderly victim, an alleged family assault and a statement deputies say the suspect made at the scene. Allanah Delores Samples is jailed on charges including aggravated domestic assault and aggravated abuse of an elderly person, and a court appearance that was first set days after the arrest has been moved to May 25.

According to an arrest affidavit filed in Dickson County General Sessions Court, sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a home near Tennessee City after a report that an elderly woman was bleeding on the floor. When they arrived, deputies encountered Samples, 24, who allegedly apologized repeatedly. Investigators said she told them her “mommy” had come after her with the bat first. Deputies then asked whether she had been struck. According to the affidavit, she said she had not. A man identified as Samples’ grandfather told deputies his granddaughter had injured his wife, directing officers deeper into the home as they began to sort out what had happened inside the residence.

Deputies said they found the older woman on the floor with apparent head injuries. The woman told them Samples attacked her with a club and struck her in the head and knees, according to the affidavit. Officers later located the bat inside the home after asking Samples where it was, the court record says. Investigators also wrote that Samples admitted hitting her grandfather’s wife. Public reporting has not identified the victim by name, and authorities have not released her medical condition beyond saying she had visible injuries. No public record reviewed for this story explains what led to the confrontation, how long it lasted or whether anyone else was in the room when the blows were struck. Those unanswered details are likely to shape the case as it moves forward.

The allegations place the case at the intersection of family violence and Tennessee’s protections for older adults. Court records and public reports describe the woman as the suspect’s grandfather’s wife, making the case both domestic and age-related in its charging language. Tennessee’s Adult Protective Services agency says it investigates reports of abuse, neglect or exploitation involving adults who cannot protect themselves because of a physical or mental limitation, including adults living in private homes. That does not answer the medical questions in this case, but it helps explain why investigators and prosecutors treat alleged violence against an older person as more than a routine assault report. The county court handling the initial stage of the case is General Sessions Court, where criminal warrants and early proceedings commonly begin.

For now, the legal path is limited but clear. Samples was first scheduled to appear in court on March 26, according to local reporting based on the affidavit and court file, but the matter was later reset for Monday, May 25. Prosecutors have not publicly laid out whether they will seek additional charges, present medical evidence about the victim’s injuries or ask the case to move on to a higher court. Bond information was not publicly available in the reports reviewed for this story. It also remains unclear whether Samples has retained a lawyer, whether the victim has been discharged from treatment and whether investigators collected photographs, blood evidence or recorded statements beyond what appears in the affidavit. Those details often become central once a case leaves its first appearance stage.

What stands out in the record so far is how quickly the scene appears to have narrowed from confusion to accusation. Deputies arrived after a bleeding-victim call, heard Samples’ explanation that her “mommy” started it, learned she had not been hit and then found an injured older woman who named her attacker. The grandfather’s statement, the victim’s account, the recovery of the bat and the alleged admission all point in the same direction in the affidavit. Still, affidavits are charging documents, not verdicts, and they usually present investigators’ understanding before a full court test of the evidence. Until hearings begin, much of the case will rest in that thin but important strip of early paperwork generated inside a county courthouse.

Samples remains publicly identified as the defendant in a Dickson County case stemming from the March 23 call. The next known milestone is her scheduled May 25 court appearance.

Author note: Last updated April 22, 2026.