Armchair Anonymous: Home Intruder

I'm Dan Shepherd, I'm joined by Michelle Badman.

- Michelle? - You're Kate Nashley, Padman? - Mary Kate Nashley, Padman. Today we have a scary prompt home intruder. - Oh, this may be scary.

- Yeah, there was a lot of screaming, rigor warning for your ears safety. - There was a lot of good cautionary tail on this. - Yeah, if you want to get neurotic, this is the episode for you because I've tightened things

- Oh yeah, please enjoy, home intruder. (upbeat music) ♪ Come and go ♪ ♪ Good times, take 'em slow ♪ ♪ My life, I had a move ♪

♪ With a warm day, you gotta know ♪ ♪ I'm upkeep on shining ♪ - Hello, is this Julia? - This is.

“You're in some kind of recording space, where aren't you?”

- I am, I'm at my office, actually, and we have a local podcast. - Oh, incredible. - Incredible. - I love these sound deafening boards behind you, they're very attractive.

- It's a very old building. The walls aren't really closed in, so we had to make it soundproof. - We're in the country, are you? - I'm in Ohio.

- Oh, what the pool? - What's your local podcast about? So I work at a marketing agency, our co-brand is called The Blaze Network, where we talk with local business owners,

about marketing, HR, all-things business, so the podcast itself is called The Torch Talk. - Oh, cool. - And I am Cleveland. - No, I'm a country, so I live in Worcester.

- Nice been a lot of time around the Amish as a kid in Southern Michigan. A lot of worsen buggies around.

- Always dodging the worsen buggies.

- What? - What? (laughing) - The scooter. - And do you have any wooden furniture in your home crafted by the Amish?

- I do not. - But very popular, right? - Yes, yes, very popular.

“And I do want to say, you guys are our inspiration”

for a podcast. We are not experts. I'm like, okay, what's up, Monica? They do this. They're set up as like this.

(laughing) I need to be looking at them. - Oh, that's flattering. - Oh, that's lovely. - Okay, I would not want this for you.

You're a very sweet person. I can tell already, but you had a home intruder. - I did. You're prompt for this month where stalker or home intruder,

and I was like, hold my beer, I thought both. (laughing) So this actually took place in Maryland. I'm originally from Maryland outside of Baltimore. In 2016, I lived with two in the room eight,

so it was three young girls, we were all early mid 20s, and we just moved into our new apartment in the bog. So right before school started, my one friend was a teacher at the time. Started noticing cigarette butts outside of our patio.

So we were on the ground level of apartment complex. So we had a little like bar top table out there, notice a bunch of cigarette butts. We're like, that's weird. High school kids must be a king and out here.

Maybe they were here before we moved in. We didn't notice it. We kept happening bottles, cigarettes, fast forward to October, Halloween weekend. We wake up some day morning, open the blinds

and see women's underwear on the door handle, and see men on the door. - Oh my God. - Oh my God. - Okay, now really quick, obviously,

you're deducing at seemen 'cause you saw fluid plus undies. - Right. - Ew. - Okay.

- That's weird. So we call the non-mortemortency police number. They come out. They're like, this is something you see in the movies, laugh it off, don't really do anything, then leave.

So we're like, all right, let's remove the underwear.

First we saw it, it was kids underwear

'cause it was very small, but then it was playboy bunnies on it. So we're like, no, this is just small. - Oh, why? - So clean up the window.

- Really quick, there's three of you, how do you decide who has to clean it up? Whoever's got the highest threshold of gross?

“- Yeah, I don't remember who cleaned it up.”

I would probably say Emily was our mom there, so we probably had Emily. - I'll tell you, remember if you were the one - Yeah, I'll just break the window or-- - Just get rid of it, yeah, I'm gonna touch that.

- A couple of weekends go by and then not the underwear, but every weekend we wake up, there's a semen on the door. - Oh my God. - We'll call the police, they come, don't really do anything about it, then leave.

We start to get blinds up, so they can't see through. We've noticed too that he's unscrewing the light bulb outside of the door so that you can see, and 'cause it's right into our living room. Then we're like, well, we're gonna catch him,

like we try to stay up at night, you know, this is after we come back from the bars, we're like, we're gonna catch him tonight. Of course, there's other weekends that he doesn't stop by, or if we have like people over,

he's clearly watching the area. - Are you comforted at all by the fact that it's happening on the living room window and not one of the bedroom windows? - I'll let a little bit, so we don't even really think of that.

So there's like definitely heavier blinds in the bedrooms. Then we're like, we're gonna get cameras, of course, we can't afford like outdoor night cameras, or like we'll just catch 'em one night. So then we get a really big current hungoff

because it's those plastic blinds that, you know, they just like break through. So probably it was about February. We noticed the next morning that the stool was screwed up close

in front on like the top, pire on the wheel deans.

So like he's trying to like peek over the blinds. - Oh my God. - Oh my God. - And he's rubbing his genitals on the glass. - Oh my God. - Oh my God. - Okay, you said you moved in an august,

“so you're not at five months of this behavior, yeah?”

- So that time we call the cops again, 'cause we had to just stop calling the cops at that point 'cause there was nothing that they were doing. So then the cops come and he tells us that we were being dramatic that it was dog slobber,

that was a big dog print, and I was like, "Sir, we are all adults, we know what seeming looks like." We know what a penis imprint, like, it's very clear that there's this on the door. So then after that I was like,

"Okay, we're done calling cops, they're not doing anything." So then in March, so it's three roommates, Emily Miranda, Emily's out of town for the weekend. Miranda's out that night, so it was Sunday night. Emily has like a little small wrapped dog, RIP Clyde.

So I was at home that weekend with the dog. Sunday evening, I take Clyde out.

Let him go to the bathroom, come back in,

shut the back door, lock it. I'm in the kitchen. He is freaking out, growing at the back door. - Oh. - Here we go. - I know it's on the phone with my boyfriend at the time.

Now has been so I was like, "What is this dog barking at?" So I'm like going out, open the windows. I don't see anything 'cause it's dark at that point. Like I try flipping on the lights, it's not turning on.

So I'm putting my face up against the window, like trying to look out to see what he's barking at. And then it dawns on me, like, "Oh my God, "he's standing on this other side of the store right now." And my face is pressed up against it,

and he turned the light off again.

“That's why the light switch is not working,”

and that's what he's barking at. So I freak out, and I'm like, "What do I do?" And he's like, "Well, hang up and call the cops." And I'm like, "No." So I hang up and I call my little sister.

(both laughing) She's like, "Get a knife and call the cops." Is your boyfriend back in Ohio still or something? He was in Missouri at the time. So then I call the cops, they come, they look around.

Don't see anything, did like a canvas of the area. So then they leave, Emily comes back home, Miranda still out that night. So Miranda doesn't come home. We go to bed Sunday night,

and then I wake up to my lights, being turned on in my bedroom. And I wake up in the guy's creeped down, my bed, and all by my dresser, crying and like, "Creep towards my bed."

So I'm like, "Who are you? Like, what are you doing?" And he keeps telling me like, "Shh, be quiet, be quiet." And I'm like, "No, who are you?" Like, I'm half asleep.

I'm like, "Did Miranda come back with people?" It's the looking for the bathroom, 'cause it's my door's right by the bathroom. So I was really like, "What the heck?"

“And then he just kept walking towards me”

and like, "I'm gonna be quiet." And what did he look like, like, "How old is he?" He was like in his 20s, I explained to the officers that he looked like a douchey soccer player 'cause he had the track pants on, spiky hair."

And he was like, " kind of short." So then I start getting mad because you woke me up and you're telling me to be quiet. And then I start like waking up more and realizing what's happening.

And then I'm like, "Okay, what would Olivia Benson do?" So I jumped that a bed. Y'all to Emily, call the cops, somebody's in the house. So he yells like, "No, runs out of the bedroom. I run down the hallway after him

like to chase him out of the house." Emily, like I see her kind of open her bedroom door and then shut it and lock it.

So I always give her craft that she's in the bathroom.

He runs out of the apartment, I lock the door, get the phone from Emily 'cause she's on the phone with the cops. I tell them somebody just broke in. So the operator stays on the line to the cops get there. They're there for hours scanning,

doing the fingerprints and everything. At that point in the timeline, the big curtains had to fall and off because we don't know how to use drills and files. They can hang the curtains back up.

They put a chair underneath the door to block it. And we had those metal handles, but they're apparently useless. They're hollow aluminum and can be really easily maneuver 'cause it's a sliding blast door.

- So that's how we got in? - Yeah, he kept jamming the door until he could break it open. And Emily said she heard something that she thought it was just Miranda coming back being drunk and just loud and stuff.

We always blame it on Miranda. To the next morning, we call our apartment complex where we are moving out of this apartment. This has been happening for months. We're not on the ground level anymore.

So they wouldn't let us break early but they said they would move us. So that day, we all call it work. We're packing up the whole apartment to move buildings. And as we're going back and forth out the back door,

our neighbors to the side is like, what was happening last night? We saw a bunch of police activities. So we tell them, you know, somebody broke in and I was like, have you noticed anything?

And then she yells up to the person that's on the balcony above her. And she's like, oh, yeah, haven't you said you're saw some guy hanging around here trying to break into their utility closet?

And she's like, oh, yeah, someone's been here trying to get into your utility closet for like weeks. I'm like, why wouldn't you think? - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah, I'm like God. So then the lieutenant comes over that day.

I blast them. We've been calling you guys for months. You haven't done anything. You laughed at us. You told us we were being dramatic.

And he's like, I'm so sorry. We're going to take this really serious. They have the crime scene that comes out the next day because there was a cement on the door from a few weeks before that we just got tired of cleaning it up.

So we kind of just like, look, I take care.

- The litter is just covered. - The brano.

“- So they come and like scan it and stuff.”

And then we move buildings. And then the building that the apartment complex moved us into the back door was broken. That was going to get fixed. So then my boyfriend ends up coming out

because he coached football. So he was on spring break. So he came out in him and Miranda like taped up the whole back door with cardboard with like one little peakele.

So we just locked out all of our doors and windows. So we moved apartments.

Never heard anything out from there.

I moved to Ohio a year and half later. And they had reached out to me said they think they caught them. They wanted me to come testify. But they gave me like a date range.

And I was like, I can come testify but like I need to know what date because I have to travel back from Ohio. And they're like, well, unfortunately, he broke into a lot of other places after yours.

So we have on their people that can testify. So I didn't have to go back. So I never knew what happened to him. - Did they send you a picture, though? - But before we moved out, I ended up getting a dog

like in the next apartment complex that we moved into. So me, Miranda and my dog were all out in the common grassy area. This was June and I saw him cross the parking lot in walk and just deadlocked like made eye contact with him.

And my dog, he was a 12 week old puppy. But he got up and stood in front of me and just grabbed at the guy the whole time. And Miranda was like, that looks like the guy you described that broken into the apartment.

I was like, no, that was the guy that broke into her apartment. And that was like the last time I saw him. - Oh my god, he lived in the apartment complex.

“- Yeah, that's what they said that he lived in there.”

So yeah, who's there watching us the whole time? - Ew. - So now we all sleep with fast fire door.

I always tell my husband, I'm like,

I'm sleeping on the outside because you're a part of labor. Like, I'm gonna try to do it with the next person, breaks in, I'm gonna be up and ready again. - Yeah, I'm holding up and seeing, so oh my God. - No, that is, I mean, think gosh, you have roommates

and they bring people home. It's almost better that at first you thought, oh, it's some dude came back from the bar and can't find the bathroom. Like, that's a little better of a thought

than, oh my God, there's a man in my room that's come here. - Yeah. - How did you sleep that following night? - We did it, so we were in the living room, like you brought our mattress out in there.

We watched him produce new groove. Actually, we watched Marinhood too. So like, we just stayed off the whole night watching that that was our show of this season. We saw something in the living together

for probably about like three weeks. - Oh my God, this is terrible. I hate that one lone idiot male can cause this kind of ruckus and demon, which God deem it, guys.

- Yeah. - Let's get it together. - Oh, horrible, horrible one, that he was caught. - I wanna know what hisism is. You know you're leaving your DNA everywhere.

- Right, he was not very smart. - Right. - And he didn't have gloves on when he was in your house. I presume? - Nope.

- Well, hopefully, between the fingerprints that you're joined and the seamen on the thing he got removed for a period of time.

- Yeah, I never know what happened

like after they went to court and stuff. I didn't have his name to look it back up. But that's my story. - Oh, wow. - Wow.

- Oh, I'm throwing it in the area. - Yeah, I didn't like that at all. But we are happy to talk to you. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And if I can shout out my brother and my sister,

I'm like, we're all armed cherries. I told him as soon as I submitted my story. I was like, I just submitted it. And then when I got the email, I called him before I opened it up

like a college acceptance fund. (laughing) - I'm going to hang it together with him. - Oh, wow. - So you have to answer my video call.

- Oh, that's so sweet. - Well, a family of geniuses, clearly. - Yeah. - Yeah. - All of you like the show.

- Oh, we're glad. - Well, Julia, lovely meeting you. - Thank you, you guys as well. - Bye. - Bye.

- Hello. - Hi, Kelly, where are you? - Okay, well, I'm from Whittier, but I live in Hendington Beach, but I'm not Hendington Beach if that makes sense.

- You're not there currently, or just you're not a Hendington Beach person. - There you go. - 'Cause for the non-californians, if we had to do a stereotype,

very associated with UFC guys and that kind of vibe. - Not these, yeah. - Oh, yay. - Yeah, not these UFC fighters.

- And not that. - 'Cause this is what we appreciate that. - Is this shame? Does it such a cute little beast now? - I don't want me to have to give that disclaimer.

- Sometimes the few, you know, they do. - They do. - They do. - Okay, so you have a home intrusion story. - I do, 45 years ago.

I was eight years old.

“I can remember it like it was yesterday.”

I can smell it, I can see it, I can hear it, I can taste it. We used to spend most of our time in Mexico. We had a house in Mexico that we were building, not extravagant Mexico, Baja California. We were motorcycle, dirt bike, water ski people.

- Oh, yeah. - And so we were always coming and going. And we got home at night, about midnight. - In Mexico or in Whittier. - We got home to Whittier, about midnight.

I pulled the trick that all kids do, where you fall asleep in the car, so your dad has to carry you to bed, which is the move. And I was not a small child, so props to my, my dad has to, for carrying my heavy ass to my bed.

And then, three, 30 AM happens. And I hear my mom scream, there's someone in the house,

And I used to be a sleeper that, like,

“you could drop a bomb in my room, I would not wake up.”

I immediately just panicked and froze, laid in my bed, and then I hear high pitched, like, that kind of breathing. And heavy heavy footsteps, and it's my naked dad jumping out of bed to chase this dude through our house.

And he's new, he's sleeping in the raw.

- Always, we're naked sleepers.

My mom will go up because our dogs used to sleep at the foot of their bed, and our girl dog, who liked no one, she did a little grow. And it woke her up, and the guy was at the foot of their bed, with the ski mask, and the pin light, and his mouth,

going through my dad's fucking pants pockets. - No! - It's so fall-sy, just like, with them sleeping right there. We must have been so tired, 'cause my mom could hear anything while sleeping.

(upbeat music) - So, Jason's shoes, he goes out the back door, and mind you, if this is a night to me, did we unlock the doors? - You don't want to be rude.

- Yeah, that would be rude. We want your break of shoes to get to our house. - You want to be able to yell, come on in! - So, they run out the back door, and the guy goes over the block wall into our neighbor's yard.

Well, mind you, my dad, naked, he grabs the guy by the shirt and gets pulled over the wall and scrapes from tail to ankles, to ankles. And when he landed, he landed on his knee that he just recovered from blowing his knee out

and he blew it out again. - Oh! - So, meanwhile, I'm still frozen dead in my bed, just panicking, and next thing I know I look up and I see something standing in my doorway,

and I'm like, oh my God, it's someone else. - Well, unbeknownst to me, my aunt had made me a clown costume for Halloween, 'cause it was Halloween. It was October 31st that day that happened, and I was supposed to be going to school,

where in my fancy clown costume, to go to our little school parade, where she came over while we were gone, and she hung it in my doorway, so I would see it, not knowing that it would not be a way,

and that we would get robbed in the middle of the night. - What if the robber had screamed, is he so? (laughing) - Oh my God! - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- By the way, so if I'm gonna climb, I would, oh shit, I rubbed in the wrong house, man. It's crazy clowns in here. - Yeah, so I look up, see this person in my doorway, panic, and then the next thing I know is I see another silhouette

with a giant ass knife. Well, it's my mom. She raised a kitchen and got the biggest bat as knife we owned,

“and she was clutching, I think, ready to get anybody”

that was getting out her baby. I jumped out of bed and she grabs me, we go to the kitchen, she makes two clown calls.

First, to my papa, her daddy, and then 911 calls 911.

- First, for a reason that really does not pollute you. - Papa showed up before the cops, and he was armed to the teeth. - That's why you called off the first. - He has no other calls.

- You're right, but most of these stories, people are calling people far away. - Yeah, they're not gonna be able to help. - Yeah, luckily Papa was only about a mile and a quarter from us.

- Did Papa have to confront naked father? Like I guess Papa probably doesn't wanna see Sun and Law naked. - Oh, no, he's seen it all, we're that kind of thing. - Okay, okay, that's fine. - So Papa shows up, we meet him in the yard.

My mom's got that death grip on that knife, and he shows up and he's ready to rumble. Like he doesn't know who he has to get what he has to do. By the way, my dad, we don't know where he is. He's gone.

My mom's standing out there, she has chonies in one hand, and a butcher knife in the other, 'cause she knows my naked dad is somewhere in the neighborhood. - He's gonna need to put some slacks on.

“- Cops show up, I think, two cars, maybe three,”

they all get out, and they see my Papa there, looking like Rambo, just ready to rumble. And they see this woman that's like panicking, and they took four cops to pry her fingers off that knife. She was not letting go of that knife,

and she's trying to explain to them, "I don't know where my husband is, "I don't know what's happening." And then we see this zombie-like creature running down the middle of the street.

Covered, come head to toe in blood, with his knee popped out of joint, so literally like a zombie running down the street, and it's my father. And the cops freak, they all draw their guns,

and she's like, "No, that's my husband!" - That's the victim. - Yeah, that's the victim. - The naked bloody guy, he runs right past the cops, jumps in his van and holds ass.

He's gonna go find these guys. - And he's like a hound dog. - Oh, he is on the set.

- And so it turns out we never found them,

but it clearly was not one person, because when we got back in the house, the cops went with us to look at all the stuff, they taken TV, stereo equipment, speakers, my mom's purse,

which that's another part of the PTSD that kicks in. So they had her purse with mom wallet back in the day, 900 pictures in there, so for like six months

my mom was like, "That's the guy." Like, she just knew, like, we don't know what they look like, he had an obscene ass gone. And so that was like the trauma that stuck with me forever. And so until the day that I met my husband,

I woke up every single night at 3.30 a.m. like in a panic sweat. - Man, wow. - It just doesn't go away. Now it's in my DNA to like panic every night

and have a negative vibe.

- Yes, we never found the guy, luckily none of us were hurt,

but that was the day that clowns became one of my biggest issues. And so that's my little home and trigger story from 1981. - The thing I'm distracted by, which is not relevant at all, is simply, it's another unique thing about the 80s

is we too had someone rob our house and they stole a TV in Jamboxes. Back in the 80s, a Zina TV, like a council TV, that thing was 11 hundred dollars, they used to be such a more significant chunk of your income.

Now everything's free, no robber is stealing as 60 inch TV. They can't resell it for any time. - It's not sure. - To mention the fact that it probably weighed 500 pounds.

“- That's right, how do they get those TVs out of there?”

I was impressed actually after I thought about it. I was like, how did they get all of our shit out there without us waking up and where did it go? I mean, they must have had a U-hole truck in the front yard. I don't know.

- But you could have never predicted that the end of this kind of theft would be that just everything got so cheap that it wouldn't be worth it. It's just such a bizarre outcome.

Like people just don't do that.

- We have a photo. - This was literally the 24 hours before. Now this gives you a little idea of my family. That's my crazy dad and my mom and me in the middle. - You're on a three wheeler.

This is so 80. - Oh, that was my three wheeler. - Was it a Honda? - It was. - It was.

- That is so cute. - And then the next year I rolled over on that thing, fell into a trash pit and opened my wrist. So that was also another little trauma. - My daughter's got a beautiful scar on her knee

from off-road adventuring. - You collect receipts, as I say. - Those are old stories in the future. - Well, Kelly, you're delightful.

“It's such an 80 story and they could dad climb”

in the fence. I don't think man tried to fight the intruders anymore. I think that's passed mostly, too. - I don't know. - I don't even think it was in his mind

to even think to not chase the guy. What if he had a weapon? - No, you don't care about that. Your naked, let's go. - Let's go.

- Well, Kelly, I'm glad you made it. That's kind of a hero in this story. He could get legend status for this. He's still a legend. Gonna be 78 in eight days and still kick a mask.

Do all the dead things. - Oh, I love it. - We'll have a great summer and joe got beach community. Don't get beat up in a cage match. - I don't go to the beach at all in the summer here.

We go northern California. All right, guys, thank you so much. - Take care. - Bye. - Well.

- Well, why? - Well, tell me about this shirt. I actually just got it on a recent trip to Paris. - Oh. - I'm going next week.

I'm so excited. - Are you? - It was incredible. I was there for Fashion Week. - Oh.

“- So beginning of March, it was a dream.”

- Oh my god, where did you get it? What do I want to talk to you about shopping?

- There was an incredible assignment shop

that we found. On the first day, I was actually there. I worked at a assignment shop and our boss took us. It was a dream. And we found another assignment shop

and that's where I did all my shopping. - Well, for the listener, if I had to give it a title, if it was hanging in a museum, the name of the shirt would be "Fuck You Convention" because you've mixed leopard print and plaid,

which I think is a no-no impression. - Yes. - No, there's not really no-nose. - Yeah, there were, they were like, you can't wear this kind of pattern in stripes.

- I know, but if you had styling, you'd wear with anything. - Okay, I'm so sorry. - Yeah, I'm glad we were talking about this. - Yeah.

I thought leopard and plaid didn't go together, but now-- - Look at it, I knew. - In my opinion, plaid is neutral. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah. - And where are you at, Molly, in the country?

- I'm in Canada, on West Coast. - NBC? - Victoria? - Oh, great. Okay, so you have a home and true to story.

- I do. This happened February of 2020. So, right before the pandemic, bad year for you. - Yeah, 2020 was a year. (laughing)

- I was home, it was about 8pm in the evening. So, not in the middle of the night when our imagination typically thinks these things happen. My husband was putting our eight-year-old to bed and our two sub-stairs sleeping in their crib.

And I was at our dining room table doing my evening ritual of puzzling, drinking wine and listening to my true crime podcast. - So, did you go to really dreamy husband? He's like, "Hon, go ahead and drink some wine. Listen to your true crime podcast, build a puzzle

and I'll put the kids in bed." This sounds like you got a real winner. - I do. He's the best. Even though bed times were a tricky time for him.

(laughing) We typically traded back and forth, but this was a his night.

Like, okay, let's do it. - Exactly.

“- Our dining room had a glass, two-way swinging door”

between our dining room and our kitchen. And I was at the dining room table with my back to the glass door. And actually, to note earlier in the evening, I had clocked that our back door was unlocked and said to myself, you know,

I'm gonna let the dog out again before I go upstairs. I'll lock it after I left the dog out. Victoria's a very safe city for the most part,

I grew up here and my parents never walked the door

when I was growing up. So I'm sitting doing my puzzle and all of a sudden, like not a sound happens, but I just had that spidey sense that like you got to clock your surroundings.

And I turn around and there's a strange man standing in my kitchen. - Who's looking at you or back to you? - He's facing me, I clock immediately. This guy's not looking anywhere. He is under the influence of something.

He's kind of staring off into nothingness. I can tell immediately. And as I'm processing this man,

“there's a door between us and four feet at most.”

- What's he look like? - Caucasian, maybe 20s smaller. - He's an addict. - He's skinny. - He's not a boy. - He's not a boy. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He doesn't look healthy. - No, as I'm processing what I'm seeing, I'll watch him look at the counter and pick up the chef's knife. - Oh my God. - Oh boy.

- And at this point, I start running through the house screaming. My husband here is fast asleep in our kids bedroom. Her bedroom is on the main floor, which is where I am. He comes out, he has no idea what's happening. - Now you have two disoriented males.

- Exactly, I scream at him. There's a man in the kitchen with a knife. He runs one way and I run the other. This is the last I see of him for a while. - Oh. - I grab my daughter out of her bed

and all her upstairs. I grab my baby out of their crib. I just close us 'cause I don't have a lock on my own suite in our on-suite bathroom. And I call 911, I have my phone thankfully.

- I didn't know this, but when you call 911, you don't necessarily have your phone call picked up immediately. - It's so annoying, actually. Sometimes it just rings. - There's not a dispatcher available to take the call, I suppose.

This felt like it went on for 15 minutes. - Oh. - Of course I'm trying to stay calm. My two-year-old is fast asleep. It hasn't woken up, but my eight-year-old is talking what's happening and I'm really trying to stay calm for her.

Finally, somebody picks up the call.

I tell them that there's a man in my house with a knife, the address, all those things. I don't remember what other questions she asked me, but I do know that even though the phone call took a long time to go through, there was already cops

in our neighborhood and they got the house really quickly. I was only on the phone for like two minutes before she said there was somebody at the house. - Oh, great. - That's comforting. - But then as I'm still on the phone with her,

“at one point she goes, "Ma'am, you need to tell your husband”

"under no circumstance, should he ever go after the perpetrator?" - I'll be sure to tell him that later tonight. - Yeah, exactly. - I'm gonna go interrupt right now, I'll have to tell him. - Yes, don't chase this guy.

- Yeah, after a few more minutes on the phone with her, I hear somebody come upstairs. Of course I know the cops are pretty there. I assume it's gonna be someone I wanna see, but they're still also in her hiding.

I don't know who's coming through the door. It was my husband who came and grabbed us and we come downstairs and there's 10 cops in my house and I immediately go, where's the dog? And they're like, "There's a dog in this house?"

'Cause that's actually usually something that they wanna know before they come into our house. And I said, "Oh yeah, we have 110 pound. "Cathula, American Bulldog Cross." - Oh.

- Our dog, nobody has seen her hurt from her. - Well, where was he at the job when this guy first came in? What was that? - Exactly. - Here she is.

- Exactly. My husband Logan immediately runs outside thinking in the commotion maybe she left, followed him out the door. One of the cops asked me to step into our spare room with him to get my statement.

Turn on the light in the spare room. I still have my kids clinging to an ear dog he's on the bed shaking. She doesn't respond to the large man in uniform.

I've never, not again, not before that had ever seen my dog

like this. And Logan comes back in the house and closes the door and that's when she gets up and starts barking. Not helpful. - Weird.

How do we explain this? She's a coward. - I can't tell you, she knew she fucked up. From that day on, she was alerting us to every

- Trying to make up for her failure. - Absolutely.

“- Wow, so she was there for the whole thing”

and just stayed quiet on a bed shaking. - Yeah. - Okay, so she gets a D. - D for dog. (laughing)

- So when you finally heard from your husband,

what was his interaction? Did he interact with the guy in the kitchen? - Oh yeah, he ran at this man. He tackled him, smashed his hand to get the knife out of his hand. Picked him up and carried him out of the house.

At that point, this guy got up and started running. And this is when the dispatcher scrolled at me because my husband ran up the street after this guy and tackled him to the ground. Luckily, the cops showed up just then

because my biggest fear was actually that my husband was gonna hurt this guy. In my mind, that was kind of a worst case scenario. My husband is gonna hurt this man. God forbid, he kill him in self-defense

and protecting his family. But like, we're not recovering from that. - Yeah. - Nobody was hurt. The guy, his name was actually Cody,

was arrested that night and was actually only in jail for not even 24 hours before he made bail.

We did press charges, it went to court.

He was charged with breaking an entering and brandish sheena weapon. It wasn't really sad story though. He was put up to it, he was an addict. - Was he there to rob?

I'm gonna get money for drugs. - Yeah, it actually just made me feel sad for him. It was a relief to know there was no intent. He just tried my door and it happened to be open. - Oh, what was his sentence, probation?

- I think so, actually, to be honest, I didn't really follow it. This was the biggest surprise to me. And after all of this, I immediately get on the phone with my therapist going,

I've just experienced trauma. I need a session, ASAP. We got a process this. I get to my therapy appointment and I'm like, yeah, this is traumatizing, I'm going to be traumatized.

“How do I deal with this trauma that's going to happen to me?”

And she's like, going to happen?

And I was like, well, I feel fine right now.

But this has to be traumatizing. And she asks me, well, what would you have done differently, given the opportunity to relive this experience? And I go, well, I protected my kids. My husband protected us.

No one was hurt. He was arrested. There's absolutely nothing that I would have done differently. - The dog needs therapy, but the other than that. - Yeah, dog definitely needs some sessions. - Yeah, yeah.

- It was a great lesson remembering how trauma works. And then it's not something that happens to you. It's something that happens in your body as it responds to something. And it really wasn't a traumatizing experience in the end for any of us, which is great.

It was a crazy thing that happened. - Yeah, I've heard a great saying someone talking about, don't mind for trauma. Don't be trying to find it and dig for it. - You probably did.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You'll come by someone's. Well, Molly, you have a very Scandinavian response to this whole thing. It's very like, I get it.

Life is complicated.

“People have struggles sometimes end up in your house.”

And that's part of doing business online at Earth. Yeah. So it sounds like it's good of a version as you can have, really. - Kind of.

- Yeah, well, it's very nice to meet you. - Yeah, very nice to meet you and join that beautiful Canadian summer. - Really nice to meet you both too. - All right, take care.

- Bye. - Have a good one. (upbeat music) - Lim? - That's me.

- Hi. - Where are you, Lynn? - I'm in Illinois, outside of Chicago. - Oh, let's go, Rob. - Yeah, we'll park.

- Originally, downers grow. - I know downers grow. - Oh, that's not far from me. - That's where our story takes. - Ooh.

- Okay, I just want to point out that your surroundings currently are so immaculate. I would love to be invited into your home. It's so clean and orderly. - This is my daughter would love it.

(laughing) - Okay, so you have a home intrusion story. - Well, not exactly. It wasn't an intruder. My husband actually letter in.

- Oh, okay, well, all right, let's hear it. - And by the way, we're not strict. So we don't care if it can be anything for us. - Okay, so it was Thursday, 2008. 230 in the morning, my husband's leaving for work.

He was a commercial garbageman. He's backing out of the drive. And there's a person there. So he stops. She knocks on his window.

It's a young woman. She said she needs help. She needs to call her dad. Can she use the phone? So he brings her in the house.

He comes down, wakes me up and says, "Hey, Lynn, you gotta wake up. I let this girl in, she's got to use the phone. I gotta go to work." - Oh, no.

- It's 230 in the morning. - 230 in the morning. So I get up by ghost stairs.

She has a camion. - What's a camion?

- Like a tank top skinny strap.

- Okay. - Yeah, her underwear. - Oh. - And a towel from my utility room ripped around her waist.

- No, swear to God, nothing else. - Wow.

“- I'm kind of impressed your husband got right out of there”

to go to work. - Yeah, it's kind of a feather in this gap that you don't wanna help her make the call. - I look at her from her fingertips to just below her elbows.

Her arms are covered in blood. They literally look like if you dip to be in a bucket and then pull them out. So we go in the utility room. We run the water.

We're gonna clean this all up. She starts telling me that her husband is a donor's girl, police officer, trying to kill her. - Oh. - And she just needs to call her dad

so that he can come get her.

So we have a daughter, she's 17. She's asleep. Sofa in the family room at this point. This girl's clean and up. We call her the bloody lady, 'cause she's the bloody lady.

- The bloody lady. - She's the bloody lady, 'cause upstairs cleaning up. - Oh, we gotta fund sneak-- - Oh, we gotta home and fruit. - Yeah, you gotta get someone in your background.

- That's my daughter. (laughing) - The 117-year-old.

“- Yeah, so I go get her some sweatpants.”

My beauty in the beast sweatshirt, some socks. I take 'em up in the meantime. I grab band aids, neosporin, bectin, anything that we might need. I get upstairs, she puts on the clothes. We go to the kitchen table.

At this point, all the kitchen lights are on. It's like 240 in the morning. We are lit up like you cannot believe. Outside lights on for her dad, hall lights on. I mean, you could land a plane.

I was like, okay, we need to shut some of these lights off. So we start bandaging her up, stuff is on the table. I start shutting off all the lights. I tell her, call your dad back, tell him to call us when he gets close.

I'll put the light on. So I'm shutting lights, my daughter comes up. She's like, what is going on? I said, you know what? I don't really know.

So take a phone, go in your room, lock the door. - Yeah. - I don't know if her husband's gonna come looking for her or what? I really didn't want to be in the middle of this

at 240 in the morning. - It's also very complicated because you can't call the police in theory. - In theory. - If she's to be taken at her word, the bloody lady.

- All of a sudden I look out and I look across the street, I see movement. I turn to the kitchen, I said, do you and your husband have a dog? She starts coming into living room.

She goes, what kind of dog? At this point, a flashlight. From across the street shines into our living room. I said, get down and I flew into the hallway. The flashlight gets closer as it's coming in

through the living room window now. So I take a little bit into the hall. I assume she's behind the island or in the utility room, I'm not sure. - Lynn, can I ask one quick question?

- Sure. - Were you getting a sense of her at all during this process? Like that she was delusional or normal? - She's crying.

- A sessing, whether she's crazy or not. - She seemed like something was going on and I just need to call my dad. - Okay. - What she upset, yes, like she needed to call her dad

and she needed to come gather, but not in a crazy way. - No, not at all. - So the light came in the living room. I fly around the corner. We're kind of just waiting.

We don't know what to do. You know, you're just sitting there. I could feel my heart beating in my ears so loud. And then I hear voices around the back. And I hear, this is the house.

There's medical supplies on the table. I crawl to my daughter's room down the hall. I'm like sticking my lips underneath the door. Very quietly saying, call 911 at the same time. They're banging on the front door.

And I'm watching the front door. It's like literally moving in and out. There's voices in the back, voices in the front. All of a sudden my daughter comes out of her room. She goes here, you talk to him.

She called 911, stated her name, her address and said somebody's trying to break in my house. You need to send the police.

“The first thing was, are you sure you're not expecting someone?”

Why?

She was like, for the love of God, it's 2.45 billion.

Yeah. Probably not. Then it was the police are at your house. And she's like, these are the wrong police. And they were like, open the door, let them in.

So that she gave me the phone. So they're like, open the door, let that man. And I was like, no, I don't know who this is. We just kept arguing. So I got off the phone.

I opened the door. There was an officer standing at my door. There were at least four squad cars in front of our house like a movie and so surreal. Yeah. So he steps right in right away.

And he's like, where is she? You know, when I was like in the kitchen. So he starts berating us. My daughter was out of her room standing next to me. And he's like, you didn't think to call the police.

And I was like, not really. She needed to call her dad. That was fine by me. She said her husband was a cop.

That's all we were doing.

So they were just jabbering at us. We felt like criminals. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

“Why aren't you interrogating me hot shot?”

Right. So they're like, you know, we're issue. So they go in the kitchen. She's gone. Oh, no, boy.

My AT&T cordless phone gone. I was like, oh, my guy. Well, she left it in the utility room. The cop found it. He goes, there's blood on it.

You probably want to clean it up. Put gloves on. I was like, thank you, man. Yeah. If they were in for a while, then they were outside.

When they did come in, we heard they had a walkie-talkie thing on their shoulder. And one of them came across that said, the ciberis is clear, or secured, or something like that.

Well, the ciberis is one of those romantic, get away, you know, they have swimming pools

in the room. And it's pretty gross. Oh, it's like a name of a hotel for money mooners. Well, it's like just a romantic. Oh, I do know.

Just like a moon, yeah, like a moon, just like, quickies, yeah. And it's like a block away, so it made sense why she didn't have any clothes on. Oh. So before they left the cop set, or one of them, it wasn't the same one. He said, she was on drugs.

“Her husband isn't a police officer in downers grow over anywhere else, and then they”

left. Have they caught her? Or we don't know yet. She's just gone. They said that they got her outside.

She's in custody. So then everybody leaves my daughter and I take her phones. We go in my room. I call her out of school. I call work.

I tell them this horrific, like, the bloody lady was here and she said, okay. They were assholes. Obviously, you know, we tried to go to sleep, and we were like, it's not happening. So we both got up. She went to school.

I went to work. Nine ten o'clock in the morning. I was like, oh, my God. She's going to get home from school before my husband or I get home from work. Who did we give instructions to?

Was it her dad? Was it not? No. Somebody has instructions to our house. So I called the Dauners Grove Police.

And I tell the woman, we had all this activity last night, and, you know, my daughter is going to get home and she's like, hang on. Yeah, you know what, there's no activity at your house last night. What? What?

Trust me. There was. And she's like, no, there was no activity in your area. I said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, there was activity in front of my house. There were four to six squad cars.

The police were in my house. Like, I didn't get their name. It was all pretty crazy. You talked to nine one one. There's not any record of that.

She put me on hold, pretty soon, a man came on. He was like, yeah, I was at your house last night. It's fine. What? It's going on.

It's not. I don't know who we gave instructions to. We got him. We got him. We intercepted him before he got there.

It's fine. So I don't know who he was. My daughter, one of her good friends, the dad was either like a captain or a sergeant in the Donner's Grove Police Department. So as my daughter told her friend, her friend was like, what the f, she's like, I'm calling

my dad. So she calls, she's like, dad, what the hell's going on? What happened? And he said, yeah, I can't talk about it. So that was 18 years ago.

She still has my beauty and peace, so I don't know. And we have no idea what happened. This is a crazy mystery and also how did that police officer tell you that nothing happened that night? Maybe she just didn't know.

Do you think it's a cover up? I don't know. A hosh up. I don't know. That is why.

Lynn, you're a perfect mother for the scenario. Yeah. Great fun. So a few weeks later, I called my daughter out of school. I said, we're going to have a vacation for a week and they were like, yeah, that would

be an unexcuse. I said, no, it was just a few. I just told you, I'm taking her.

“They were like, you have to talk to the dean.”

I said, by all means, he got on the phone. I said, look. This is what we had to deal with. We're going to Florida for a week. And he said, OK, yeah, good.

Good. Do you go to Daytona? Floridadale. We had a hotel on the beach, walked out. It was very nice.

No bloody lady. No bloody lady. No.

And we told my husband never again.

Yeah. But also, what was he supposed to do? There's a girl saying, I need help. What's he going to do? I ignore it.

A couple years later, because he was a commercial garbage man. And he was near good Samaritan Hospital and he came home from work one day. And he said, you'll be very proud of me. He said, I was driving on a route. Passing the hospital.

He said, there was a woman in the driveway of the hospital in a gown, waving at him. And he said, I just kept going. I don't know. You got to make your wife happy first. My son actually said, maybe she'll listen.

Yes, you'll have to send us a photo of the sweatshirt so we can come for her.

One thing is, I have to tell you, parenthood, probably one of my favorite. Show, so I told my daughter, I would have to tell you that and can she say hello to you. Oh, I see her in love that. Of course. Hi, guys.

Hi. That was Lynn. Who are you? I'm Samantha. Hi, Samantha.

You were sleeping on the couch? I sure was. Crazy story that we've told for many, many years. And I'm a day-one armchair. And I've been listening and listening.

And so finally, this problem came up and it probably could have been wildcard too. But I was like, mom, we have to say this was perfect. Your mom's so fun. Oh, my gosh. What a firecracker.

She's the best. Yeah. She's a beautiful mix of a Midwesterner and a New Yorker. There's a lot of go fuck yourself in her. I love it.

Absolutely love it. Great. She's going to love it. And was there any detail that she left out? You want to tell us about her?

Anything she got wrong? Do you remember this woman? I can't remember her face or anything. I was shaking. I was so scared.

I remember they tackled her in the backyard and they also did say that it was kind of like a drug deal hookup on bad and that she jumped through the window at the cibros. That's what the cuts are about.

So closely, but we never saw any damage to the cibros.

Ha. What a question. Yeah. It was never in the paper. Is the cibros still in action?

Sure. There are definitely still people utilizing that. You need yourself ever stayed at the cibros? No, so. Okay.

Yeah. You're a good woman. I've been to that cibros. Wait, Rod, you've been to the cibros? Yeah.

To make love. Did you go there to make love?

“Oh, my God, were you guys in the hot tub and stuff?”

We didn't learn anything about the bloody lady, but we're learning a lot about Rob. Rob might have been there for this. I'm glad Rob knows all about it. Yeah. This has been a deal.

Yes. I love your mom. You and your mom. Good night.

I've gotten a better mama.

Well, hug her on our behalf. Thank you for telling that story. That was incredible. Absolutely. Thank you guys.

All right. Take care. I want to go to their house for dinner and then go to the cibros. Cibros sounds like the Neptune and what's it called in Veronica Mars, where why did you go there, Rob?

You're a 19 and you have a girlfriend and you can't go home. Who did I love it? I love it. It was like a anniversary. Why didn't you just go outside at that point?

Yeah, in the park. I feel like you're too hygienic for the cibros. I don't think I was thinking about that element at that point. Yeah, you probably. I can't wait.

You can't wait for part of your brain. The water fall pool and the room. It sounds like it smells like chlorine in a room. It sounds disgusting. It's a scrub.

Public water that other people have been faking it.

“What's the place in Veronica Mars, Neptune in or something?”

Yeah. That's where everyone would go. And it'd be scary. For their naughty business. Yeah.

All right. Why don't you break in? We had one, but luckily I didn't in her face with the person we discovered after the fact they had been in the house. That's preferred.

That you don't know. Yeah. Obviously. Especially with my temperament. What am I going to do?

How am I going to survive this? Well, you'll lock your doors. That was back when we were still pretending we lived in the Midwest, but now we've learned our lessons. But should I lock my bedroom door?

People say don't do that. Because of firefighters? Yeah. Or like if I have a seizure and no one can get in. What's the point?

Because someone wants to get through your bedroom door, you they will. No, but if I hear it, moving, I can just start screaming. I'm kind. I know. No, I want you to untrap a form.

No, you got to go on your balcony and jump off. You should have a little rope. That's more of the move. No, a rope. It's not a climb.

No, you keep it on your bed. It's got a grappling hook. You quickly run through the grappling hook around the railing and then you go over the side. I think panic ramps still to move. Yeah.

Panic bath. Panic bath. Panic bath. Panic bath. Panic bath.

Panic bath. Panic bath. It's a tomb. Monica Padmins. Celebrity panic box beds.

Check them out. This is a great idea. It just lowers wherever you are sleeping. Those in. They can be chic.

Yeah. I'll make them cute. And you might even prefer sleeping in the interior of the mattress. But if you're claustrophobic, that's not a move for you. But you probably are the less claustrophobic than you are homicide phobic.

I am. Yeah. I think most people are probably. All right. Well, that was all right.

Love you.

“Do you want to sing a tune or something when you're with him?”

Sound? Okay. Great. Yeah.