PHILIPPI — A man is behind bars and accused of pointing a pistol at a woman’s head and strangling her.

Julius Earnest Cantwell, 43, of Montrose, is charged with three felony counts of wanton endangerment with a firearm and one count of strangulation, a felony. He is being held in the Tygart Valley Regional Jail on a $70,000 bond.

According to the criminal complaint, prepared by Deputy C.A. Curkendall of the Barbour County Sheriff’s Department, officers responded at a Philippi residence on Saturday. The involved parties had been separated before his arrival. The alleged victim spoke with an officer at a Philippi restaurant, while Curkendall arrived at the residence to find Cantwell “laying in the yard.”

The alleged victims told police that Cantwell “had a .22 pistol pointed at” a woman’s head, and the other two alleged victims got the gun away from him, the complaint states.

The alleged victims also told officers that Cantwell grabbed the woman “by the throat and choked her, leaving bruises, causing harm” to her, according to the complaint.

Cantwell gave Curkendall permission to search the residence, and the officer observed “a room with things thrown about and broken glass,” and found a “box for a .22 Heritage pistol, but not gun inside (his) gun safe that was open,” the complaint states, noting, “There was a silver cylinder inside.”

Cantwell found the .22 pistol where the alleged victims said it would be in the residence, according to the complaint. Cantwell first allegedly told Curkendall that “he just had the box, no pistol,” but when the officer showed him the gun, Cantwell said “he had no idea how the gun got into the house.”