Horse ride prompts gun threat

Despite 31 years of marriage, Johnny and Margaret McCullough spent Valentine's Day apart after Hamilton County sheriff's deputies broke up the couple's domestic dispute, which included horses, a suspected romantic triangle and a gun.

Police arrested Margaret McCullough, 73, and charged her with aggravated assault Sunday. She spent an hour in jail before posting a $2,000 bond.

She is expected to appear March 16 before Hamilton County General Sessions Court Judge Christine Mahn Sell.

Johnny McCullough, 76, told deputies he was riding horses with Patricia Anderson, 53, when his wife, Margaret McCullough, came outside their Georgetown, Tenn., home and confronted him about his female friend.

"My wife made the wrong assumption," Johnny McCullough said Monday.

A cattle breeder, McCullough said it wasn't the first time his wife had seen Anderson riding horses with "some other friends and kids I've had over," but this time the friends "didn't show up for some reason."

When "[Margaret's] demeanor told me it wouldn't be a good situation," Johnny McCullough said he ordered his wife back into the house while he finished the ride with Anderson.

As McCullough and Anderson fed, saddled and rested the horses in a nearby barn, they heard a car rumbling outside. The wife had returned.

"I will shoot you first," Margaret McCullough told her husband, according to police.

"I'm retired military [Army], so I understand guns and what you do with them," Johnny McCullough said. "I don't ask questions — 'Are you sure you're going to? Are you going to think it over?'"

Margaret McCullough then pointed the pistol toward Anderson, the reports states.

Johnny McCullough "grabbed the gun and twisted Margaret's arm [behind] her back and disarmed her," reports state.

When deputies arrived, they questioned Margaret McCullough, who said "she knew Johnny had been cheating with Patricia Anderson" and felt "overwhelmed" when her husband shooed her into their home.

"She believed with the gun in her hand, Johnny would not turn her away and she would be able to meet Anderson," the report states.

Anderson and Margaret McCullough could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.

Until her court date, Margaret McCullough is prohibited from contacting her husband, possessing a firearm, visiting her home and consuming alcohol, records show.