A 43-year-old Broward woman is facing felony charges after Florida Highway Patrol troopers say she bit off a portion of her husband's ear during an argument while the couple drove north on I-95 with their two young children in the back seat. Amy Arlene Baker was taken into custody near Hillsboro Boulevard after the confrontation turned violent around 7:14 p.m. Monday, according to the arrest report.
The couple was driving home from a boat party at Fort Lauderdale's port marina when the argument escalated, as reported by CBS News Miami. Baker's husband told investigators she struck the left side of his face with an open hand, while Baker alleged it was her husband who hit her on the left side of her face with an open hand — a dispute the arrest report does not resolve. Baker's husband denied hitting her, per the report.
What happened next left the trooper who responded to determine that Baker was the primary aggressor. According to the arrest report, Baker grabbed her husband's head with both hands and bit the right side of his ear, tearing off a portion of it while the vehicle was still moving on the interstate.
A Frantic Exit and a Race to the Hospital
After the bite, Baker's husband exited the highway and drove to West Boca Medical Center in Boca Raton to seek treatment. Baker retrieved the detached piece of her husband's ear and later gave it to medical personnel at the hospital. Friends who had been traveling behind the family took the couple's two children, ages 1 and 7, to a house once the family reached the hospital.
Medical literature on traumatic ear injuries published by PubMed Central notes that reattaching a severed ear fragment requires urgent surgical intervention — either composite reattachment or microvascular replantation — within hours to preserve blood flow and prevent permanent disfigurement. Baker's husband was waiting for surgery to reattach the piece of his ear, according to the arrest report.
Charges and Custody
The investigating trooper took Baker into custody, and she acknowledged biting her husband's ear, per the arrest report. Baker told investigators she had become frustrated and lost control. She now faces charges of aggravated battery causing bodily harm and child neglect without great bodily harm, and was booked into the Broward County Main Jail; her bond status was not immediately known.
Under Florida Statute § 784.045, aggravated battery causing great bodily harm or permanent disfigurement is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison, 15 years of probation, and a $10,000 fine, according to the Florida Senate. Child neglect without great bodily harm, charged under Florida Statute § 827.03, is a third-degree felony carrying up to 5 years in prison, 5 years of probation, and a $5,000 fine. The Department of Children and Families was contacted about the incident, per the arrest report, though what action the agency has taken regarding Baker's children remains unknown.
A Dangerous Place for a Domestic Dispute
Florida Highway Patrol treats domestic violence as a criminal matter rather than a private one, giving troopers on state highways full authority to investigate violent crimes and make warrantless felony arrests, according to agency policy. The stretch of I-95 running through Broward County is itself a high-risk corridor: the South Florida segment spanning Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties recorded 181 fatal crashes over a five-year period, making it the most dangerous interstate corridor in the state, per data cited by Madalon Law. Broward County alone saw more than 38,200 crashes in 2024, resulting in 223 deaths and over 23,000 injuries, according to Martindale Law Group.
The case also lands against a backdrop of rising domestic violence reports in the county. Domestic violence rates in Broward County climbed 29% per 100,000 residents between 2020 and 2023, according to a report from Florida International University's Metropolitan Center. Women In Distress of Broward County, the county's certified domestic violence organization, operates a 136-bed emergency shelter and served 2,494 survivors and family members during its 2023–2024 operating year, while noting an increase in high-lethality abuse cases. Statewide, certified domestic violence shelters provided 412,360 nights of emergency shelter to 10,287 survivors and their children in fiscal year 2020–21, according to the Florida Department of Children and Families.
Public real estate records list Baker as a licensed Florida real estate professional with active sales associate listings in Broward and Palm Beach counties. No additional details on her legal representation or a court date have been released.
