A woman watching television in her nightgown raced from her bedroom and attacked a man with a cooking pot after he stole golf clubs from her porch, police said.
Sabrena Davis said she first grabbed a knife after a neighbor yelled to tell her that a man had taken the clubs, but then decided to instead attack him with a 10-inch cooking pot.
"I started beating him with it. He asked for it," she said.
Davis' attack slowed Timothy A. Simison, 27, until police arrested him outside her home Tuesday morning shortly after she had whacked him in the head and shoulders with the pot.
The Hartford City man, who was being held without bond Wednesday at the Delaware County Jail, faces preliminary charges of attempted burglary and theft.
Police said Simison was on a crack cocaine binge when he tried burglarizing the two-story house where Davis, 36, lives with her brother, Maurice Garrett.
A neighbor who noticed Simison on the enclosed front porch where Garrett keeps tool boxes, tackle boxes and golf clubs cornered Simison on the porch and yelled to Davis, who ran downstairs and attacked with the pot.
Simison tried to escape custody several times, including working his handcuffed hands from behind his back to his front by passing them under his feet, said Muncie police Lt. Al Williams.
When police searched Simison before placing him in a holding cell at city hall, they found a cell phone in one of his socks belonging to one of the officers who had transported him.
"Talk about a klepto. If you sit back and look at this, it's almost comical," Williams said.
Police said they found a stolen lawnmower in a car Simison had parked behind Davis' house.