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Police: Man threatened with knife

SUMMIT TWP — A rolling pin, skillet, baseball bat and a butcher knife.

Those were the assortment of weapons that state police say a reportedly jealous woman used Monday to threaten her fiancee at their home in Summit Township.

Tammy L. Duffield, 44, was arrested after the early-morning blowup on Bent Creek Lane.

Duffield accused the alleged victim, Lee Harless, of being with other women when he returned home about 3:30 a.m., according to court documents. Yelling turned into hitting when he sat down on a chair in the living room.

The 47-year-old Harless told police his girlfriend began “hitting and smacking” him in the face and spit on him.

He recounted she snagged an aluminum baseball bat and struck him in the left forearm with it. Next, documents said, she got a kitchen skillet and threatened to hit him with it.

Moments later, documents said, she grabbed a wooden rolling pin and lifted it over her boyfriend, as if she was going to strike him with it.

Finally, police said, she got a butcher knife from the kitchen and came at Harless.

“Duffield raised her arm with the knife and stated, 'I should (expletive) kill up,'” the frightened fiancee told investigators, documents said.

But instead of attacking Harless with the knife, the defendant walked over and repeatedly stabbed the couch.

Harless suffered a lump on his forearm and scratches on the back of his neck.

After troopers arrested the defendant, she claimed she “just wanted to scare” her fiancee.

District Judge Lewis Stoughton later arraigned Duffield on felony charges of aggravated assault, misdemeanor charges of terroristic threats, simple assault and reckless endangerment and a summary charge of harassment.

She was placed in the Butler County Prison on $30,000 bail following arraignment.

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