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Outgoing Pentagon chief Patrick Shanahan’s son once beat his mother with a baseball bat so brutally it cracked her skull and left her unconscious in a pool of blood.

Details of the 2011 incident emerged after Shanahan, 56, a former Boeing executive, stepped down as acting Defense Secretary and deputy Pentagon chief, departing government service to, in the words of President Trump, “take some time off for family matters.”

Immediately after the 2011 incident, Shanahan defended the actions of his son William, then 17, something he now says he regrets. His account of what he described as “a tragedy, really,” was laid out in an excruciatingly detailed report by the Washington Post, with whom he had been outlining since January his family’s history of domestic violence.

The distressing events appear to have begun seven years before his three children, sitting in the U.S. Capitol, watched as their father was confirmed as deputy defense secretary.

By that point, all three, Caili, now 28, William, 25, and Jordan, 20, were estranged from their mother, Kimberley Jordinson. William had a felony conviction resulting from the 2011 incident. Shanahan and his wife had divorced.

After more than two decades of marriage, the couple’s relationship soured, according Shanahan and two of his children. One Thanksgiving, they said she threw the entire meal onto the floor and in another instance, she destroyed the cake her daughter had made for Shanahan’s birthday.

The culmination of Jordinson’s alleged erratic behavior came in August 2010, when she began beating her husband repeatedly in the face as he tried to fall asleep.

Shanahan states he did not respond, but the argument escalated to the point where, according to police records, Jordinson began throwing his clothes out the window and attempting to set them on fire. She called the police alleging that Shanahan hit her, but when police arrived Jordinson was arrested and charged with domestic violence.

The charges were dropped and Shanahan filed for divorce. His ex-wife Jordinson was granted custody of the children, taking them with her to Florida while Shanahan remained in Seattle, where they had lived.

It was November 2011 when the baseball bat incident occurred. William got into an argument with his mother over suspicion that he was romantically involved with a 36-year-old woman. The dispute escalated to the point where, according to police, William pinned his mother against a wall and grabbed his $400 Nike composite baseball bat and struck her in the head multiple times.

“I attempted to run away from Will, but as I reached the laundry room, he struck me with the bat in the back of my head,” Jordinson wrote in a court filing in the divorce case. “The last thing I remember from before I lost consciousness is the impact of the bat, and blood gushing everywhere.”

Police said in the report that William left his mother unconscious in a “pool of blood” and then “unplugged the landline phone cord depriving the victim and [the younger brother] the use of 911 to render aid.”

William allegedly tossed a bottle of rubbing alcohol at his younger brother and told him, “you clean her up.” The younger brother called 911 from the phone of a neighbor’s house.

William called his father, who immediately booked a flight to Florida. Jordinson required surgery. Her skull and elbow were fractured.

Police in Sarasota, where the Jordinson and the children lived, began to hunt for William. But Shanahan landed and arranged a hotel for William. “Mr. Shanahan’s response when he learned of the assault was to book Will a hotel room,” Jordinson wrote.

Shanahan told the Washington Post: “It was a hard time to see your son, hopefully you’ll never be in that spot some day. I wasn’t hiding. We got a hotel and talked to the attorney and we just camped out.”

In the aftermath of the beating, Shanahan assembled a legal defense team to support his son. William’s defense attorney, Derek Byrd, claimed that Shanahan didn’t know that police were searching for his son in the days after the beating.

Days after the assault, after discussions with his father, William turned himself in to police.

During William’s initial court appearance, also attended by Jordinson, Byrd argued that William should stay out of jail because he was a college baseball prospect and “has a future.” Byrd also told the judge that being in jail would “traumatize him” and he might get kicked off of the baseball team.

“He doesn’t believe in violence,” Shanahan told the judge that day, “I’ve never seen him act aggressively toward his brother or any other family members, so it’s a shock to me, what has happened.”

Despite the pleas by Byrd and Shanahan, the judge declined to release William, citing the “horrendous” photos from the crime scene. William was slapped with the felony charges of aggravated battery and tampering with a victim, although he ended up pleading guilty to one third-degree felony.

Shanahan wrote a memo to Jordinson’s brother defending his son. Submitted 10 days after Shanahan appeared in court with his son, he alleged that his wife turned her aggression from him to their children.

“Use of a baseball bat in self-defense will likely be viewed as an imbalance of force,” Shanahan wrote. “However, Will’s mother harassed him for nearly three hours before the incident.”

Jordinson disputed that claim, saying in a court filing that she has “always been a very loving and dedicated mom.”

Shanahan has since distanced himself from the memo, telling the Washington Post that there was no justification for the assault and that he wrote the document in the hours after the attack before understanding the severity of his ex-wife’s injuries.

“Quite frankly it’s difficult to relive that moment and the passage was difficult for me to read. I was wrong to write those three sentences,” Shanahan said. “I have never believed Will’s attack on his mother was an act of self-defense or justified. I don’t believe violence is appropriate ever, and certainly never any justification for attacking someone with a baseball bat.”

“I have never believed Will’s attack on his mother was an act of self-defense or justified. I don’t believe violence is appropriate ever, and certainly never any justification for attacking someone with a baseball bat,” he added.

In 2012, a Florida state prosecutor agreed to a “withhold of adjudication,” which shortened his sentence. William was sentenced to spend 18 months at a youth detention ranch and serve four years on probation. Both of those penalties were reduced.

William went on to attend the University of Washington, graduating last June. Jordinson lost custody of the youngest of the children in 2014. She is now estranged from all three of them.

“Bad things can happen to good families,” Shanahan said, adding that details of what happened “will ruin my son’s life.”