Robert Wargo

CLINTON TWP — State police had to make a rooftop rescue of a woman during an alleged domestic dispute involving a gun late Wednesday night in Clinton Township.

Troopers helped get the 53-year-old woman out of harm's way at the house on Hidden Hill Road. No one was injured.

Inside, they also found the suspect — sleeping and apparently drunk.

Robert W. Wargo, 65, who lives at the home, was arrested without incident. He is charged with terroristic threats, simple assault and harassment.

He was placed in the Butler County Prison and later arraigned by video. District Judge Sue Haggerty remanded him to prison on $25,000 bail. He is also being held on a county probation detainer.

Police said the victim's 17-year-old granddaughter called authorities a little before 11 p.m. to report she and the victim were on the home's rooftop.

The teen reported that the defendant was armed with a rifle and he had threatened her grandmother, according to charging documents. She said he was “looking for them.”

The woman later recounted that Wargo had gotten into an argument during a family gathering and grabbed a rifle.

She allegedly told police he went outside and fired one round into the ground and went back into the house. By then, the woman was upstairs.

The defendant, she said, while still holding the rifle, “kept trying to have (her) come to the first floor to the base of the stairwell,” according to documents. He also allegedly threatened her.

A police report noted that the rifle “was not pointed directly at the victim.”

The woman told police that she was forced to hide on the rooftop “to escape the situation.” She and her granddaughter, who also escaped onto the roof, remained there until police arrived to help.

When troopers entered the house, the report said, they found Wargo “asleep and intoxicated.”

Police said they also found a hunting rifle in the downstairs front closet.

At his arraignment, Wargo told Haggerty that his 35-year-old son died June 2 and asked that she release him, so he could attend Thursday's funeral home visitation and Friday's funeral service.

But noting the seriousness of the charges, Wargo's extensive criminal record that includes a previous case in Clinton Township involving similar charges and the probation detainer, Haggerty set bail.

His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Wednesday at Haggerty's office in Saxonburg.