Man describes finding intruder with hatchet in his bed

Resident: “He got up with the hatchet in his hand; I hit him on the head with my gun.”

A Butler County grand jury will now consider the case of a man who was found in a Middletown couple’s bed with a hatchet and his pants down.

Michael Robert McClain, 30, was arrested July 6 after a woman came home and found him, according to Middletown police. He is charged with aggravated burglary, felonious assault and public indecency.

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Officers were called to the 1300 block of Woodlawn Avenue on a report of a burglary. An investigation revealed a man entered the house and was lying in bed “with his pants down” and his genitals in his right hand and a hatchet in his left, 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 today 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.”

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

When the man bumped McClain and he awoke, that is when he saw the hatchet, he testified.

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

Then he and McClain fought and struggled through the house, according to the resident.

The man said he used some boxing skills to keep McClain at arm’s length. Eventually he was able to push McClain out the home’s back door. The man said he believes McClain came in that door, which may have been left unlocked.

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

Police found McClain on the sidewalk in the 200 block of Young Street, bleeding from the head.

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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