A robber cut the phone line at an elderly woman's LaPorte home, broke in and ransacked the home looking for money early Tuesday, May 19, 2009. (WSBT photo)
Story Created:
May 19, 2009 at 5:34 PM EDT
Story Updated:
May 19, 2009 at 6:05 PM EDT
LAPORTE — It's a scary scenario — you're fast asleep in the middle of the night when something outside your window wakes you up. Then someone busts down your door and starts ransacking your house. That’s exactly what happened to an 81-year-old LaPorte woman early Tuesday morning.
Police say her quick thinking may be the very reason she’s alive to tell her story.
The woman, who agreed to talk to us on the condition we wouldn't give her name or say exactly where she lives, said she’d thought about the situation before. But she never imagined she’d have to live through it.
“I tried to stay calm and not get too excited,” she told WSBT. “You never know what somebody's going to do.”
Her terrifying experience began around 4:30 a.m.
“I heard something on the side of my house. And that must have been when he was cutting the phone line,” she said.
But the woman dismissed the noise, thinking it must be the wind. A few minutes later, she heard the thief break down her kitchen door.
“When he came in, he told me he was on drugs and he wanted money,” she recalled.
The robber — wearing a mask and gloves — then broke her cell phone, told her to stay in bed and ransacked the house for money.
“He was just digging around like a mad man, just going through everything,” she said.
After the man left, the woman went next door for help. She was shaken but thankful.
“I was scared to death,” she said. “I thought if I could just get out of this without getting hurt, you know?”
LaPorte City Police Capt. Clyde Crass told WSBT her cooperation with the thief is likely what left her unharmed.
Crass said the suspect took off with a couple hundred dollars in state quarters, silver dollars and half dollars — collections the woman was saving for her grandchildren.
“We’re going to work vigorously to get him identified. That's why we want to get the story out there and we've been out notifying merchants in person to be on the lookout for anyone spending that kind of currency in larger quantities,” Crass said.
Police also want this to be a lesson for everyone else.
“Stay in contact and check on [your] elderly relatives and neighbors,” he said. “This guy cut her phone. She could have been in there a couple days if she wouldn't have been free to move about.”
One of the woman’s neighbors told WSBT there have been a few car break-ins in that neighborhood recently, but nothing like this. However, police said one or two streets over from where this happened can be a pretty bad neighborhood — lots of drugs and crime.
Police are still looking for the man who robbed the woman. He's described as a white male. He was only wearing a mask and gloves. Crass said detectives want to catch him before he strikes again.
If you have any information, call LaPorte City Police at (219) 362-9446.
