LINCOLN COUNTY • A 22-year-old man has been accused of repeatedly stabbing another man with a screwdriver in a dispute over a missing pig, police said.

According to court documents, three roommates who live in a home east of Highway 79 in Winfield had been raising a pig for about seven months and eventually planned to slaughter it. The pig was kept in a pen in the backyard and had grown to between 170 and 200 pounds.

About two weeks ago, the pig disappeared. The roommates told police they do not believe the pig could have escaped on its own.

The roommates began their own investigation, police said, and suspected that Joshua Alan Finke had something to do with the pig’s disappearance.

The roommates confronted Finke about 10:30 p.m. Monday at Finke’s home in the 100 block of Eagle Landing Drive. The discussion quickly turned into a physical assault, police said, with Finke apparently using a screwdriver to stab one of the roommates, a 38-year-old man, once in the back of the head and 22 times in the back.

The man was taken by ambulance to a local hospital for treatment. Authorities believe the weapon was a screwdriver, but it was not recovered at the scene. The man was released from the hospital on Tuesday.

Finke is charged with first-degree assault and was being held at the Lincoln County jail in lieu of $100,000 cash-only bail. The whereabouts of the pig are still unknown.

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