Brittany Moulton said she ended the relationship months before prosecutors say Latarius Mylik Dale attacked her at home.
DOTHAN, Ala. — A timeline that began with Brittany Moulton leaving a relationship in November 2024 ended in May 2026 with Latarius Mylik Dale sentenced to life in prison for a claw hammer attack at her Houston County home.
The sentence followed a Houston County jury’s guilty verdict on a first-degree domestic violence charge. Prosecutors said Dale broke into Moulton’s Lovetown home in February 2025, dressed in black and armed with a claw hammer, after Moulton blocked him and stopped all contact. The attack left her with severe head injuries, a torn retina and long-term vision loss in her right eye.
Moulton said the relationship ended for good in November 2024. She had left before and returned, but this time, she said, she told herself she was not going back. The couple shared a child, and earlier court history showed the relationship had already reached the criminal justice system. Dale had faced a third-degree domestic violence charge in 2023, though Moulton later asked for it to be dismissed. She said she believed then that they could continue raising children and work through the conflict.
By February 2025, that hope was gone. Moulton said she had blocked Dale so he could not call or message her. She later said he knew the relationship was over and did not know where she was or what she was doing. Prosecutors described what happened next as a break-in and beating, not a confrontation in a shared space. Dale entered the home, they said, and hit Moulton more than two dozen times in the face, head and chest. The number of blows and the chosen weapon became central facts in the case.
Moulton’s memory of the attack was fragmented by fear and injury. She said she came home, got in bed and then heard footsteps. She saw a dark figure inside. After the first blow, she yelled, then felt another strike in the same area. The next clear part of the story came after she woke up on the floor. She was badly hurt, could not see from her right eye and knew she needed to leave the house. She walked outside and tried a neighbor’s door before collapsing in the yard. The next morning shifted the case from an assault inside a home to a medical emergency. Moulton was found outside and taken for treatment. She was flown to UAB Hospital in Birmingham, a step that showed the seriousness of her injuries. She spent 14 days in the hospital. Later, she described a metal plate in her head, stitches from ear to ear and scars across the top of her head. Doctors also treated damage to her right eye. Moulton said she cannot see from that eye.
Investigators identified Dale as the alleged attacker, and the case moved forward on a first-degree domestic violence charge. The charge placed the February assault in a more serious category than the 2023 misdemeanor case. Prosecutors linked Dale to the home entry, the hammer and the injuries. Local reports did not identify another suspect. The trial focused on the home invasion account, the medical evidence and the history between Dale and Moulton.
The verdict came in May 2026. Moulton was present in the courtroom when jurors found Dale guilty. WTVY reported that she was visibly emotional. The sentencing followed on May 21, when Judge Steensland ordered Dale to serve life in prison. Local reports noted that Dale had no prior felony convictions, but the judge still imposed the life term. The sentence includes the possibility of parole, meaning the punishment is not life without any chance of release.
The court outcome left several parts of the public record clear and some parts unresolved. The dates are known: a final breakup in November 2024, an attack in February 2025, public survivor interviews in April 2026, a conviction in May 2026 and a life sentence on May 21. The injuries are also known through Moulton’s account and local reporting. What has not been publicly reported is a detailed appeal schedule, a parole timeline or a full transcript of the trial testimony.
In the Wiregrass region, the case drew attention because Moulton lived long enough to describe the attack and later stood in court as the verdict was announced. Her story moved across local news as both a crime report and a survivor account. She said the attack did not define her, despite the scars and permanent injury. That public statement came before Dale’s conviction, when the case was still pending and his first-degree domestic violence charge had not yet been decided by jurors.
The legal posture now is simpler than the long timeline that preceded it. Dale has been convicted and sentenced. Moulton continues to recover from injuries that doctors said could take a year or more to heal. As of June 21, 2026, no reported court date has changed Dale’s life sentence with possible parole.
Author note: Last updated June 21, 2026.