An Apollo man was sentenced Thursday to serve 12 to 24 years in state prison for splitting his ex-fiance’s forehead with a hatchet, leaving her partially blind in one eye, while he was allegedly delusional from the effects of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Dean Jay Law, 31, was sentenced in Butler County Common Pleas Court after pleading no contest to a first-degree felony charge of attempted first-degree murder, which was among many charges state police filed against him following the June 9, 2020, attack in the victim’s family home in Summit Township.

Dean Law

Police said Law walked through an unlocked rear door into the home on Bonniebrook Road shortly before 7 a.m., uninvited and unnoticed, and attacked the woman as she slept in her upstairs bedroom.

His then-girlfriend told investigators that she was with Law when he drove into a field near the home and told her that he was going for a walk and he would return. She said she did not see him in possession of a hatchet when he left the vehicle.

The victim in a later interview with police recalled seeing Law standing over her before he struck her with the hatchet, which was protruding from her forehead when police arrived.

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