Woman smacks cameras while leaving courthouse

A relative leaving the arraignment of Sharman Odom lashed out at  two photographers and a reporter on Monday.

Steve Ohnesorge with a cut to his cheekbone. (WBTV)

Darlene Odom, mother of the man accused in the strangulation murder of high school counselor Maggie Daniels, was leaving the Catawba County Courthouse in Newton when WSOC (Channel 9) reporter Sarah Rosario pointed a microphone at her and asked, "Do you have anything to say about the charges?"

She batted Rosario's microphone away, saying "Get out of my face!" She took about eight more paces, then turned and smacked the lens of a Channel 9 camera being operated by photographer Andrew Perdue. Then she charged forward and smacked the camera being held by WBTV's (Channel 3) Steve Ohnesorge.

Perdue wasn't hurt, said WSOC news director Julie Szulczewski, but Ohnesorge, who was adjusting the color balance on his camera when it was hit, suffered a cut to his eye socket.

Ohnesorge has been on five tours of combat zones during his 38-year career at WBTV. "And never a scratch," he said Monday.

He has, however, been run down on the sidelines of high school football games, sustaining injuries more serious than Monday's, he said. Once, a player ran over him while he was shooting and the viewfinder cut him down to the cheek bone. 

"I feel for the mom, and that she felt she had to lash out at me," Ohnesorge said. "She was upset."

Darlene Odom was charged afterward with misdemeanor assault and given a Sept. 10 court date.

Ohnesorge was the second WBTV photographer injured this summer. In June, a young man crept up behind Devin Futrelle as he was raising the mast on a Channel 3 van near Druid Circle in Charlotte and smacked him in the neck, giving him what appeared to be a mild concussion.