Enraged and in a “manic state,” Stephanie Marie Swank grabbed a large 16-inch machete and began swinging it around inside a property on Boyer Lane in Jordan Township about 7:15 a.m. on Aug 11, state police alleged in an affidavit. While two people bolted from the structure and locked themselves in a parked vehicle, a third person – a female juvenile – also ran to the vehicle, but the 28-year-old Swank chased after her down a driveway and confronted her, putting the machete to the girl’s neck, police alleged. The juvenile “was able to push the blade away and put Swank on the ground by pulling her hair,” police said, adding the minor managed to get around Swank and get inside the vehicle with the two other occupants. In the confrontation with Swank, the minor suffered a minor finger laceration.

While all three were locked in the car, Swank, of 121 Main St., Watsontown, stood outside the vehicle with the machete, threatening them by yelling “You deserve to die. You don’t deserve to live. I will kill you,” it was stated in the court document. All four are acquaintances, police said. Troopers soon arrived on the scene and took Swank into custody without incident.

As she was taken to the police barracks in Montoursville, Swank volunteered “multiple statements that she was waving the machete around,” the affidavit. During her time at the barracks, she was asked several times if she needed to go to the bathroom, police said, adding that she refused each time. “Then at 11:08 a.m., she pulled down her pants and urinated on the patrol room floor,” police alleged in the court document. Following her arraignment before District Judge Kirsten Gardner on charges of robbery (Swank allegedly took one of the victims’ cellphones by force during the incident), aggravated and simple assault, terroristic threats, possession of an instrument of crime, institutional vandalism and harassment, she remains jailed in the Lycoming County Prison in lieu of $35,000 bail. Swank has since waived her preliminary hearing.