FRANKLIN, Ind. (WISH) — A Franklin man faces up to 20 years in prison after threating to kill his own family. According to a release from Johnson County Prosecutor’s Office, on March 22, officers responded to Candlewood Suites in Greenwood and found a juvenile male covered in blood after he had stabbed his stepfather, Robert Vanatta IV, in what investigators determined to be an act of self-defense. Police say earlier that day, the juvenile and his two siblings, ages 17, 16, and 5, and their mother, fled to the hotel to escape Vanatta. As the family attempted to leave the hotel in their vehicle, Vanatta pursued them down a dead-end road and rammed their car three times with his three-quarter-ton truck, forcing it into a ditch and disabling it. As he was armed with a gun, Vanatta threatened to kill them if they did not get into his truck, police say. After he forced them inside truck and drove away, the 17-year-old juvenile attacked Vanatta from the backseat, stabbing him in an effort to stop the vehicle and allow his family to escape. When the truck came to a stop, the mother and her three children fled and returned to the hotel, where they again contacted police. Vanatta faces four counts of criminal confinement, four counts of intimidation, one count each of strangulation, domestic battery, and neglect of a dependent, and three counts of criminal recklessness. In a statement, Johnson County Prosecutor Lance Hamner said “we will be asking the court to impose the maximum sentence in this case.” “It is both horrifying and reprehensible that a man who should have been willing to defend his family with his very life instead became a threat to their lives. Sadly, the only thing this man has taught his sons is what a man isn’t,” Hamner said. Vanatta’s hearing is scheduled for May 21. ...read more read less