The Intruder
She’s hugging her hero! Just after she opened her presents.
We had a really, really scary night the other night. My husband is a hero and so are my boys. They are protectors. Especially Isaac and my oldest son, 16. I know that we, the human race, have a fight, flight or freeze mode. I also know that when it comes to fighting, we must practice discernment, we must know about fighting out of real fear and danger and protection, and not let that fight turn to anger and revenge.
I am so, so proud of Isaac and Kyler and Kaleb. They did the right thing. They fought, but not for revenge, for protection.
On Saturday night, after Isaac locked up the house and fell asleep and then Maya went to bed, the boys and I decorated the dining room for her birthday. She was turning 9! We had to unlock the door to go outside to the shop and get lights and her presents and stuff for decorating . We made the room so festive – she really wanted to wake up to her birthday party all ready! We did a nice job and went to sleep.
At about 3:15 or so that night, Isaac woke up to go to the bathroom. The bathroom is in the hallway, across from Maya’s room, which had an almost closed door, it was barely ajar. This part gives me chills. As he was walking past her room, a man opened her door and started walking out and down our hallway! I heard Isaac ask, “Hey! What are you doing?” He was half asleep (he tries his hardest to wake up as little as possible for his nightly pees) and so was disoriented and a bit confused. The man started running down our hallway and I heard a huge bunch of clashing and crashing and banging. I always wake up when anyone uses the bathroom or gets up for water ~ I’m a light sleeper and feel like I keep a good watch over everything in my sleep. I am wrong about that. As this was happening, I was just becoming more aware and realizing something was seriously wrong, but in no way what-so-ever was I thinking, “there is a stranger, an intruder in our home, in our daughter’s room.”
Then I heard Isaac say, in an almost completely unrecognizable, deep and strange voice, “What were you doing in my daughter’s room?” At that point I became totally awake and ran down our hallway to where they were fighting. What I saw was a man down on the floor, with Isaac wrestling him and trying to restrain him. He was fighting really hard. I was still confused and not sure what the heck was happening, wondering who it was, thinking maybe it was someone we knew, hurt. It kind of seemed like Isaac was helping him up? Then I heard it again, “What were you doing in my daughter’s room?”
Chills ran down my spine and made me numb and freezing and I started screaming and asking who he was and what was going on. Isaac said that he didn’t know but that he was in Maya’s room and to go check on her. I was screaming, “Maya, Maya, Maya! Are you OK, Oh My God, Maya!” When I ran to her room, she was sitting up in her bed and crying. She said she was ok and then I heard the guys fighting more and I ran out and tried to kick him, but it didn’t work out so well. At that time, Isaac asked where Kyler was so I started shouting for Kyler.
Kyler ran out of his room, paused for just a second to see what was going on. I screamed, “a man was in Maya’s room!” Then, without any hesitation at all, he ran up to the man, who was still trying to fight Isaac off, he’s a big guy, the intruder, and Kyler used his elbow and all his weight to pound on the guys back over and over and over again, until he finally stopped trying to kick Isaac. He was like donkey-kicking Isaac. He was kind of on all fours, but Isaac had his head and arms in a bit of a hold. All the while, he was trying to bite Isaac and kicking and being horrible.
As soon as Kyler and Isaac had him restrained, he rolled over and we saw that he was fully exposed. His entire penis and balls were out and it was apparent that he was a very bad man, with very bad intentions and I totally freaked out. That’s when I called 911 and tried to give them a coherent story. Still, the man was fighting and trying to bite Isaac. It was sooooooooooooooooooo scary.
At one point, while I was talking to the dispatcher, I got a knife and said that I was going to have to stab him to make him stop fighting Isaac. Isaac was telling him to shut up and be still, but he wasn’t cooperating. “Oh my god, his penis is out! He was in my daughter’s room with his balls and penis exposed! What was he doing in there? He won’t stop fighting with my husband. I’m going to have to stab him to make him stop, oh, I don’t want to stab him, hurry! Please get here, somebody is going to get so hurt, oh God, Isaac is going to have to kill him or something. Oh, we can’t kill anybody, we don’t want to kill him, Hurry!”
I ran up and down the driveway looking for lights and felt such despair when I didn’t see any. It felt like they were taking forever. I hung up and called Isaac’s cousin to come over, he’s like 6’9″ or something and, in retrospect, I should have called him first, because he lives a few hundred yards from us and could’ve been here way faster than the police. The cousin and his wife got here super quick and by the time they got here, the police were just pulling up. This was probably 15 minutes or maybe 20 from when we first woke up. I was showing them to our back door and they ran in and grabbed the guy from Isaac and asked us if we knew him, we said no and then they took him out. He was struggling with them also, and they had to drag him out.
During the time that I was on the phone with 911, my 13 year old came out went and got Maya and put her in our room and told her to stay in there and consoled her. Then he came out and noticed that the presents were on the floor, including the fish he got for Maya. So he saved them and, really, Maya knew about the fish and would have been terribly sad if they had died. So, it was a wonderful, thoughtful thing to do. She loves those fish!
By the time the police came in, Maya had come out of my bedroom. She was really scared and worried her dad was going to get hurt. I’m not sure exactly when she walked in the living room because I was running up and down the driveway looking for the police and running back into the house like a wild-scared woman. But she did see him and by the time I got to her, she was shaking like a leaf and crying and so was my 13 year old. We were all doing that crazy, shock-shaking. It was a real-life nightmare. It’s still hard to believe it actually happened.
The police were kind and told us we did a great job. The detective got there at around 5:30 or so and did his thing. Scheduled some more investigative things and said that he was really impressed with Isaac. He said the guy was lucky he didn’t get shot. He said how great it was for Maya that her guardians protected her.
As a family, we stayed huddled up all morning, while the police talked to us, waiting for the detective and then after the detective left, we knelt together and gave thanks that we were all ok. We were scared, exhausted, shaken up, but safe.
Maya still wanted to do her birthday, so I gathered myself together and made a birthday breakfast, put all her gifts back in order and let her do her presents at like 6:00 a.m.
The door was unlocked because the boys and I forgot to lock back up after Isaac had locked it up.
The man clearly knew where Maya slept. He must have been stalking her. He was so very quiet. Was he there before? We have reason to think so now, but are not certain. Yet.
The man is in jail and his trial is at the end of the month.
Maya, who was never afraid to be alone, to go outside in the dark, or sleep in her room, now won’t go outside, doesn’t like to be alone and sleeps with us. She said the safest place for her is right between us!
Isaac’s hand broke during the struggle with the intruder. That comes with a whole bunch of problems as it makes it difficult for him to work. It’s a tight Christmas this year.
But, we are safe. We are ok. My love for Isaac and my respect for him and his quick thinking and acting and his restraint in not shooting him (we believe in non- violence whenever possible, just because you have a gun and a reason to shoot someone, doesn’t mean you should shoot them) and protecting us and keeping his wits about him. I don’t want to spend another night without him.
I’m thankful that we are a strong family, with a strong faith. Strong enough, that more than once, we prayed for the man. That he would come to sorts and be a good person. But that he would not get out of jail any time soon.
I feel sorry for his mom. Being the mom to that would be very difficult. All moms love their sons, even their grown (37 years old) sons who do bad things. This must be terrible for her. I’ve prayed for her more than once, too. I also want to ask her, “WTF? How did this happen?” It’s quite extreme to go into a stranger’s house, into a child’s room and do . . . whatever he was doing. I hate to let my mind go to what he might have done if he hadn’t heard Isaac. I do know that pedophilia is a serious and awful crime and that it progresses. Who knows where this might have gone?
This Christmas, we are thankful for the Peace that comes with our faith and for our safety right now. I’m thankful that Isaac was prompted to wake up right when he did and I’m thankful for my HEROES ~ My husband and sons! This is one proud mama and wife. My heart fills with pride when I reflect back on their protection and then their tenderness to Maya (and me) that day. What would have happened without them? What if I had woke up to use the bathroom and saw him, what if Maya did, or Kaleb? What if we hadn’t heard him and he came back again another day and hurt her or, worse, took her. OMG! Please let him get a lot of years in jail.