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Mason Co. suspect charged; claimed to be covered in ‘Santa’s blood’

Posted at 11:34 AM, Nov 16, 2017
and last updated 2017-11-16 11:35:17-05

SCOTTVILLE, Mich. – The man arrested for attacking a Mason County deputy while intoxicated and covered in blood has been identified.

The Mason County Sheriff says Roy Purple, 62, faces up to three and a half years in prison because of being a repeat offender.

Officials say that the incident began around 3:00 p.m. on Monday when the clerk at the EZ-Mart BP gas station on US-10 called police to report a man wandering around with a lump of bloody meat in his hand.  The clerk said the man also got into the back seat of a vehicle, uninvited, until he was told to get out.

Deputies followed a trail of blood to a nearby trailer home, where they say Purple “bum-rushed” the deputies, body-slamming one of them and falling on him. Purple told deputies to leave and that the blood that was on him “belonged to Santa Claus.”

Deputies later discovered the blood and the meat were from a dead deer that had been recently hit by a vehicle near the trailer and Purple and three others had cut pieces out of the deer and were cooking it.

Purple is charged with two counts resisting police.  Bond was set at $3,500.