Dad accused of beating wife with hatchet (New Port Richey, Florida)

Dad DANIEL LEE STUCKEY is currently on trial for attempted 1st-degree murder and aggravated batter for beating his wife with a hatchet. Notice that this sh** had previously threatened to hit the daughter "upside of the head" if she ever called the authorities regarding his violence.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/man-accused-of-beating-wife-with-hatchet-goes-on-trial-in-pasco/1076843

Man accused of beating wife with hatchet goes on trial in Pasco
Molly Moorhead, Times staff writer
Posted: Mar 02, 2010 03:16 PM

NEW PORT RICHEY — Antoinette Stuckey awoke to her daughter's screams and a sharp pain in her head.

There was a struggle in the dark, and when the bedroom light came on, her husband was standing there, a crazed look on his face, swinging a hatchet.

"He kept saying, 'Die bitch, die bitch,'" Stuckey testified in court on Tuesday.

Daniel Lee Stuckey, 43, is on trial charged with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery in the June, 8, 2009 attack. He faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted.

Antoinette Stuckey said she and her husband of almost 20 years were living together with their two daughters on Old Orchard Lane in Port Richey, but their marriage was long over. Daniel Stuckey, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, was staying in his younger daughter's bedroom until he found his own place.

That day, Antoinette Stuckey said she worked a double shift — 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. — at her job as a certified nursing assistant in Clearwater. Midway through, she got a call from her husband. He was agitated, she said.

"Daniel said, he asked me, 'did you tell Danielle to call 911 on me?'" Antoinette Stuckey testified.

She said she had told their daughter that if her father became violent to call the authorities.

"And I said, 'yeah, I told you not to touch her when you're drinking,'" Antoinette Stuckey testified. "Apparently (they) had gotten into an argument and he told Danielle he would hit her upside the head."

Antoinette Stuckey cut the phone call short.

Late that night, when she got home from work, she said her daughters were sleeping in her bed. She could tell her husband had been drinking. He tried to speak to her, but she ignored him.

She showered and quickly went to bed, too.

"Do you remember being woken up?" Assistant State Attorney Jim Goodnow asked.

"I can remember hearing my daughter screaming," Antoinette Stuckey said. "It was one of them screams that you know that your child needs you."

Still groggy, she could see in the dark that Dominique was struggling with someone. Then the light came on.

"As soon as I got up off the floor … I just started fighting with him," Antoinette Stuckey said.

She felt a sharp pain on the side of her head where her husband struck her.

"I seen that it was a hatchet he was swinging," she said.

"How was he swinging it?" Goodnow asked.

"Like he was trying to kill me," she said.

Antoinette Stuckey wounds on her head and arm required multiple stitches.

Stuckey's public defender, Asma Ali, said there were two sides to the story, and in Stuckey's version there was no intent to harm.

She told jurors in her opening argument that Stuckey was upset with his wife and wanted to talk to her, but she kept brushing him off. He had the hatchet because he had been cleaning carpets in their house and was using it to lift and move furniture.

He was holding it when they began arguing in the bedroom.

"In the struggle to get the hatchet back, she inadvertently gets scratched on the arm," Ali said.

Check back with tampabay.com later today for an update.