Sophomore Charles Talmadge charged in Lewis incident

A relatively peaceful Friday night in Lewis Residence Hall escalated quickly into chaos as one third floor resident being shot with a Taser and taken into custody.

According to an Alert Carolina email sent out the next morning, Department of Public Safety officers brought sophomore Charles Talmadge, 20, into custody not long after they arrived at Lewis at approximately 11:18 p.m.

“Department of Public Safety Police officers responded to the report of a male individual who was unclothed and acting erratically... (he) had entered another resident’s room and had reportedly sexually assaulted a female,” officials wrote in the email.

DPS spokesman Randy Young declined to comment on whether or not officers had confirmed a sexual assault had taken place.

Talmadge was charged with breaking and entering, resist/obstruct/delay of arrest, assault on law enforcement officers, vandalism, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Sophomore Ian Gallager, who lives on Talmadge’s floor, said that he encountered his neighbor at about 10:30 p.m.

“He was completely naked and just stumbling around, completely uncoordinated,” Gallager said. “It was really weird. I’ve never seen anyone quite like that before.”

Gallager said that Talmadge was not aggressive at that point in the evening.

“He would kind of respond to us, if we told him, ‘Charlie, stop,’” he said. “He was very peaceful. You could just kind of touch him on the shoulder and he would just collapse.”

Gallager saw Talmadge return to his own room and close the door after wandering the hallway and hoped that he had gone to bed.

“I heard about what happened later in the night, and it was hard to believe that he’d gotten so, I guess, violent, especially because when we saw him he was barely even capable of walking,” Gallager said.

At about 10:40 p.m., Talmadge arrived at the door of another hallmate, sophomore Harry Riegel.

Riegel noticed that Talmadge was bleeding slightly. The blood spread to Riegel’s computer and other possessions as Talmadge picked up objects in his room.

“Charlie would barrel roll over my bed, and then walk around, and just do that again like eight times, naked and sweating a lot,” said Riegel.

After removing Talmadge from his room, Riegel later heard the police arrive and donated a pair of his own shorts to the still-unclothed Talmadge.

“I feel for the kid,” he said. “He’s a good guy. He was just out of his mind, I don’t know.”

Both Gallager and Riegel said they had enjoyed socializing with Talmadge on their close-knit hall. Gallager said he saw Talmadge moving belongings out of his room Sunday.

“It’s really a huge bummer to see him go out this way, because we really valued his friendship and hanging out with him,” Gallager said.

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