Out of frying pan into fire for wife who hit husband with skillet

The image of an angry woman hitting her uncooperative husband over the head with a frying pan is usually a cartoonishly laughing matter.

After all, it's a staple of comic strips, Ma and Pa Kettle movies and cartoons where the outline of the victim's face is usually left forged in the misshapen skillet as birds and stars encircle his head.

But in Putnam Circuit Court this week, the old frying pan-to-the-noggin scenario took on a little more serious tone, emerging as what helped land a 50-year-old Cloverdale woman in the Putnam County Jail facing four criminal charges.

And to hear defendant Pattie Stanifer tell it, she was just complying with the wishes of husband Michael Stanifer during a Sunday evening domestic incident at their home.

"He kept egging me on to hit him in the head with the frying pan," she told Senior Judge T. Edward Page, "so I did it."

But it wasn't without just cause, the wife reasoned as she talked openly at her initial court appearance without legal counsel at her side.

"He was hurting me, rubbing hamburger in my hair and trying to shove it down my throat," the Cloverdale woman told the court.

But Pattie Stanifer is the one who went out of the frying pan into the fire here, getting arrested while reportedly fleeing the scene after police responded to the home.

She is now facing charges of:

-- Resisting law enforcement as a Level 6 felony that carries a sentencing range of 6-30 months in jail.

-- Resisting law enforcement as a Class A misdemeanor, carrying a sentencing range of up to one year.

-- Domestic battery, also a Class A misdemeanor.

-- Operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, a Class C misdemeanor punishable by up to 60 days in jail.

In all, Judge Page said, she was looking at a maximum possible sentence of three years and eight months, along with a potential $15,500 fine if convicted on all charges.

And beside that, since she refused a breathalyzer test, her driver's license was automatically suspended.

Judge Page, who was sitting in for Judge Matt Headley, also issued a no-contact order on behalf of husband Michael Stanifer.

There was no word on any possible injuries sustained by the husband.

The defendant, who has bonded out of jail since the hearing, told the judge she will hire her own attorney.

An Aug. 25 pretrial conference was set in the case.