A homeowner in rural Virginia will not face charges after defending himself from an unwanted and unexpected visit from a stark-naked stranger who recently tried to break into his home and assault him with a cast-iron frying pan.

Authorities in Carroll County, Virginia say the incident happened on the evening of Sunday, February 26th when the homeowner heard a noise coming from the rear of his home. When the man went to investigate, he spotted the unknown woman in her birthday suit coming through his door frying pan in hand. The woman repeatedly managed to hit the man in both his head and one of his hands before he was able to push her out of the house and lock the back door, but the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office reports that didn’t stop the woman from once again trying to gain entry.

He managed to get her back outside onto the porch, where the CCSO said she started turning all the electrical breakers, beating on the kitchen window, and “yelling at the homeowner to get out of her house or she was going to kill him.”

“The female then began beating on the same door in which she had already made entry previously, at which time the homeowner discharged his firearm, striking the female in the lower leg area,” CCSO said.

Identified as Paula Michelle Locklear, the woman was taken to the hospital where she was treated and released. She was charged with Felony Breaking and Entering an occupied home while armed with a deadly weapon, Assault and Battery, and Property Damage.

The local sheriff hasn’t said if they’ve figured out a motive for Locklear’s alleged intrusion, or why she was running around without a stitch of clothing on a chilly February evening, but maybe we’ll learn more as her case progresses in the courts.

Regardless of the motivation of the intruder, the homeowner had a right to protect himself from the attack. Locklear’s actually been charged with felony breaking and entering an occupied home while armed with a deadly weapon based on her alleged use of the cast-iron frying pan as a cudgel, and she could easily have done a lot of damage to the homeowner if he hadn’t been able to defend himself with his handgun.

Calling 911 and waiting for police to arrive really wasn’t an option either. Carroll County is a big place, and on Sunday evenings there aren’t more than a handful of deputies on patrol. No matter how quickly those deputies responded to the call, it’s highly unlikely that they would have arrived in time to stop the assault on the homeowner.

It’s good that neither the armed citizen nor the alleged intruder were seriously harmed here, and I do hope that Locklear counts her blessings and gets the help she needs to turn her life around in the future. Yes, she’s facing some pretty serious criminal charges, but her encounter with the armed homeowner could easily have ended with her in the morgue and not the county jail.