Briana Rideout a Whitefield, Maine woman pleads guilty to splitting her dad’s skull with fire poker after money argument.
Daddy’s little girl. A Whitefield, Maine woman has been ordered to spend 150 days in jail after splitting her father’s skull with a fire poker and piece of wood.
Briana Rideout, 21, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge Tuesday in connection with the 2017 attack in the basement of her dad’s home in Randolph, the Kennebec Journal reported.
Police said an inebriated Rideout and her father got into an argument about money.
Rideout’s father pushed her so she would back away after she started screaming at him, according to her arrest report.
Police said she fell over after being pushed and picked up a piece of firewood to hit her father across the head.
Rideout hit her father multiple times with the firewood and a fire poker until another relative got involved. Her dad fled through a window.
Authorities say Rideout had been drinking before going to her father’s house.
The incident led to Rideout’s father incurring two fractures to his skull, a large cut over one eye and bruises on his arms, shoulders and chest, according to a report by Kennebec County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeffrey Boudreau.
Deputies reported finding a large piece of firewood — with a chunk missing — and a blood-stained poker on the basement floor.
Rideout was initially charged with aggravated assault but pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge.
In sentencing her on Tuesday, District Court Judge Eric Walker commended Rideout for undergoing counseling and holding down a job for six months.
Said the judge, ‘You’ve earned this result, it’s not something that’s just being given to you.’
