AUSTIN (KXAN) — Court documents obtained by KXAN reveal new details related to the University of Texas men’s basketball coach Chris Beard’s arrest early Monday morning, including allegations that he choked his fiancée.
The woman told police after they arrived at a home on Vista Lane that she and Beard had been having relationship issues and had been upset with each other for several days. She said verbal arguments turned physical and that “he just snapped on me and became super violent,” per the court affidavit. KXAN reached out to Beard’s attorneys and asked for a statement as he left jail Monday, but he did not respond. We will update this story when we receive one.
The woman attributed a bite mark on her right forearm, a cut to her right eyebrow and temple, a scrape to her left leg and cut to her left thumb to Beard, per the documents.
The woman said Beard “choked me, threw me off the bed, bit me, bruises all over my leg, throwing me around, and going nuts,” per the affidavit. “I could not breathe,” she described later in the affidavit.
She said she couldn’t breathe, motioning and telling police he had allegedly laid an arm across her neck while behind her, the affidavit described.
His fiancée told police Beard had been mad at her and hadn’t been speaking to her. When she went to check in on him in their guest room, she found him sitting on the bed and twirling his reading glasses. She told police she became frustrated, took Beard’s glasses and broke them before returning to their bedroom.
She said Beard then came into their bedroom and was upset about his broken glasses, per the affidavit. She told police she offered to buy him a new pair before he allegedly slapped the glasses she was wearing off her face, according to court documents.
She tried finding her glasses and said she was thrown from the bed onto the floor, which injured her leg. She then said she was “attempting to gather her bearings because she was unable to see without her glasses” when Beard choked her with his arm for “probably like five seconds.”
His fiancée then said Beard threw her onto the bed and “moved his face within inches of her face” before letting go, per the affidavit. When the officer asked her what she thought made Beard stop, she said, “I don’t know, he just let go.”
When police interviewed Beard at their home, Beard said he had audio recordings of the incident that showed he wasn’t the “primary aggressor,” per court documents. When asked if he’d share those recordings with law enforcement, he declined.