SISSONVILLE, W.Va. -- Warrants have been issued for four men more than four months after police say they beat an Illinois student with a baseball bat, stole his wallet and left him with a brain hemorrhage.

On Thursday, March 18, at 2:18 a.m., Kanawha County Sheriff's Deputy A.J. Miller responded to an assault call at a home on Legg Fork Road in Sissonville, according to a complaint filed Wednesday in Kanawha County Magistrate Court.

Miller arrived at the residence around 2:34 a.m. but learned that the beating victim, Benjamin Craig, 20, of Peoria, Ill., had been taken to the Charleston Area Medical Center's Women and Children's Hospital and no longer was on scene, according to the complaint.

Miller spoke with the resident of the house, Justin Carpenter, 19, who said he had returned from the local 7-11 when he noticed there had been some sort of altercation at his home. Carpenter denied knowing any of the men that were involved in the altercation, according to the complaint.

The deputy noticed a small amount of blood on a parked car in the driveway and told the occupants to exit the residence before he got written consent from Carpenter to search the house, according to the complaint.

Miller found blood inside and outside the house and got verbal statements from all the men at the scene, who denied knowing any of the people who had been involved in the fight, according to the complaint.

The deputy went to the hospital and later spoke with the victim about the incidents leading up to his injuries, according to the complaint.

According to the recorded statement Craig gave Miller, Craig said he was at Carpenter's trailer off Legg Fork Road when his friend from Illinois, Nikolas Pilcher, left with Carpenter to go to the 7-11, according to the complaint.

Pilcher knew Carpenter from high school, and Craig and he had traveled to West Virginia and were spending the night at Carpenter's house during their spring break, said Craig's mother, Terri Boon.

"Ben had never been to West Virginia before," his mother said.

Craig told police he started to fall asleep on the couch but woke up to someone punching him in the face. Craig identified his alleged assailants as Charleston 19-year-olds Travis Ray Goodwin, aka T.R.G., and Lannie Earl Shaffer Jr., and Travis Ray Wickline, 21, of Glasgow, according to the complaint.

Craig told police the men told him to give up his wallet. Craig refused and, during the scuffle, Goodwin struck Craig on the back of the head with a baseball bat, the complaint says.

Wickline made most of the verbal demands for the money, but all of the men participated in the physical assault, according to the complaint.

The assault put Craig in the hospital with several lacerations, a broken nose and cheekbone, two black eyes and a hemorrhage on the left side of his brain, according to the complaint. He spent just one night in the hospital in West Virginia after the assault, but had to take medical leave from Illinois Central College where he attends as well as his job when he got back home, his mother said.

"Ben is all healed up now. He is doing well. He is going back to school in the fall," she said. "We are just so thankful."

Boon said that, although she feels some relief that something is finally being done about the assault on her son, she is disappointed in how the West Virginia police handled the situation.

"He was injured. I feel like the police department did nothing to protect my son and I don't feel they did their job," Boon said. "[Craig] told the people who it was, and they just talked to those guys and let them go until now. That just doesn't happen in Illinois.

"I felt that, since we were from out of state, they were just going to let this hang."

Boon said she and her son will be traveling to the state next week to help police with some case information.

Carpenter, Goodwin, Wickline and Shaffer will be charged with armed robbery and assault during the commission of a felony when they are arrested.

Reach Kathryn Gregory at kathr...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5119.