Man describes finding intruder with hatchet in his bed

Credit: Middletown Police, WHIO.com

Credit: Middletown Police, WHIO.com

A man in Middletown, Ohio is facing felony charges after he was discovered in a couple's bed with a hatchet and his pants pulled down.

Michael Robert McClain, 30, was arrested after a woman came home and found him, WHIO reports.

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McClain is charged with aggravated burglary, felonious assault and public indecency.

Officers said they were called to a burglary report to a home on Woodlawn Avenue on July 6.

Investigators said the man was lying in bed "with his pants down" with a hatchet in his hand, according to the police report.

The woman called for her husband to get the man out of the house.

The husband then attempted to wake up the man to get him out of his house.

During a preliminary hearing Friday in Middletown Municipal Court, the husband testified McClain was asleep on his wife's side of the bed "propped up, covers pulled to one side and all my pillows behind him."

He believes McClain entered the home through an unlocked back door.

The man’s wife, children and other family members had just returned home from watching fireworks, he said, noting he was at a home just one minute away.

“He got up with the hatchet in his hand,” the homeowner said. “I hit him on the head with my gun.”

He testified that he and McClain fought and struggled through the house.

He said he attempted to use some boxing skills to keep McClain at arm’s length. Eventually, the man was able to push McClain out the home’s back door.

When McClain made a move back toward the man, he said he fired a shot into the ground. He fired a second shot before McClain left his yard, he said.

During the incident the man said McClain was “swinging the hatchet.”

“I was in fear for my family, not for me, but for my family,” he said, noting his wife and young children were huddled together on the home’s porch during the incident.

The man said he had only seen McClain once before, about a week prior when he was asking his wife for water.

Municipal Court Judge James Sherron found sufficient evidence to bind McClain’s case over to a grand jury.

McClain’s bond is set at $450,000.

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