Man accused by troopers of threatening girls in Unity with sledgehammer

A 37-year-old Allegheny County man is accused of breaking into a Unity woman’s home Monday and threatening two 12-year-old girls inside with a sledgehammer, state police said.

Keith D. Wilk of Scott Township was arrested on charges of burglary, criminal mischief, making terroristic threats and resisting arrest. Troopers said the incident happened at 6:15 p.m. on Faulkner Way.

State police were called to the scene by a Pittsburgh-area taxi driver who said he drove Wilk to the home and who was waiting for Wilk to return with the payment, when two young girls ran outside “screaming call the cops,” Trooper Kasey Frank reported in court documents.

Wilk formerly had a relationship with a relative of one of the young victims, Frank said.

According to court records, the girls were inside the house when they heard someone enter and began yelling for a female adult resident. One girl told Frank that she told Wilk the woman was not there.

“Wilk became irate, picked up a sledge hammer and started yelling at the victims,” Frank reported. “(Wilk) began yelling he was going to smash the (adult) victim’s car and kill the dog with the sledgehammer if (the girls) didn’t contact the woman to get back to the house as soon as possible.”

The woman arrived while Wilk was being questioned by police and said she had broken off the relationship, but Wilk has kept attempting to contact her, Frank said.

When Wilk was told he was being arrested, Frank said he became angry, “screaming at troopers” and had to be placed in leg shackles to keep from kicking the back seat of the patrol car as he was transported to the state police station.

According to online court dockets, Wilk has his driving privileges suspended because of a prior DUI conviction. He is awaiting a preliminary hearing in February after Mt. Lebanon police charged him with driving on a suspended license. Wilk also is awaiting trial in Allegheny County for a 2019 DUI arrest filed by Pittsburgh police.

Dockets show he was given probation in 2014 after pleading guilty to making terroristic threats, possession of drug paraphernalia and unlawful restraint charges filed by Bridgeville police.

Wilk is being held in the Westmoreland County Prison on $50,000 bond. A preliminary hearing is scheduled Dec. 21.