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Husband Trying To Defend Wife Killed With His Own Bat

ORANGEVALE (CBS13) — A husband rushing to protect his wife from an attacker was killed with the baseball bat he tried to defend her with.

Sandy Harlow, 61, was housesitting for a friend in Orangevale. When she came to feed the dogs, she says a former resident of the home was in the garage and wouldn't leave.

She dialed 911, but the cops didn't show up right away.

"I called my husband and I said, 'James, please come. Please come I'm so frightened,'" Sandy said.

James Harlow, 62, did come, with a baseball bat. That's when Sacramento Sheriff's Deputies say Brandon Biagioni attacked the husband who was twice his age with his own bat.

James came stumbling out of the garage, bleeding, but conscious. he was able to give deputies a statement before they arrested Biagioni.

Sandy says James seemed OK at the hospital, until he suddenly went rigid from a seizure.

"How can it be that a wonderful man who loved me—that loved me so much, that would come so that I wasn't scared, and some punk just knocks the s*** out of him with a baseball bat—how can that be?" she said.

She wishes more than anything that the suspect would have just left, saying her beloved husband would still be alive today.

"And then I feel the guilt," she said. "Because I called him and he loved me so much, now he's dead."

The woman Sandy was housesitting for said she's known the suspect for a few years, but he's never been violent with her. She says she feels terrible because Sandy and James are best friends.

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