[uneasy music]
♪ ♪
- I knew he was in there. I could feel him.
I felt like I could almost smell him.
- I am terrified.
There is a green eyeball staring directly up at me.
- That's the stuff of horror movies.
Heads up, everybody.
Make sure your crawlspaces are locked.
- He said, "I could kill you right now."
- Man found hiding between a family's walls.
- Intruder secretly living inside her attic.
- Man slithers out from under home.
- Make sure your crawlspaces are locked.
- I hear footsteps.
I'm vulnerable, naked, and someone is in my house.
- There was somebody violating my home.
- I want to believe it's in my head.
- It's a giant man's handprint.
- You came into my home. You invaded my privacy.
- [screams]
- We had a phrogger in our house.
♪ ♪
[gunshots]
♪ ♪
In 2016, I'm living in goodlettsville, tennessee,
About 20 minutes north of nashville.
I work as a floral designer, but I also hold yoga classes.
I've lived in this house for 27 years.
It's an older neighborhood.
My home was built in the early '60s.
I live in a split-level ranch.
It's about a half a mile off the road.
I'm up on a hill.
I enter the doors that we call the flower shop room,
'cause I work from home. There's a door leading off
To the right that has a large bedroom there,
About 600 square feet, with 8-foot windows,
And then you can go upstairs to the kitchen.
Walking through the kitchen, there's three full bedrooms
And 1 1/2 baths.
I've raised seven beautiful kids in this great house:
Four boys, three girls.
- We were homeschooled,
So we were all there all the time.
There's big woods in the back, and so we built
Lots of little secret clubhouses in the woods.
And there's a big creek going through it,
So we're always catching crawdads
And just running wild in the woods.
Super fun.
- It was great raising them all there,
But I've really enjoyed living in this big house by myself,
Having the floral business, and the art,
And the yoga that I do here.
So when the kids moved out,
Yes, I did start branching out and start dating.
It's terrifying to begin to date
For the first time in your adult life,
Because I spent all those years raising kids,
But it's exciting.
I started dating tony the first week of may, 2014.
Tony and I met on an online dating site,
And he was absolutely charming,
And it was fireworks, in the beginning.
It was great. He's handsome.
Very intelligent.
He's a master electrician who's very adventurous,
And I had always had a great fear of heights.
I'd never ridden a roller coaster.
- This woman--she doesn't want to get on a ladder.
- But with tony, I went skydiving.
- It was fun to see her become more adventurous
And try new things, because she trusted him.
He's a really cool dude.
- So about six months into the relationship,
He told me--he said, "you know,
I know we're really falling in love," he said.
"but there's something I need to tell you,"
And I was like, "oh, no."
And he said, "well, some years ago,
"I got into kind of a brawl in a bar,
"and things got out of hand.
And me and this other dude were fighting over a woman."
♪ ♪
He said, "and I was arrested, and I served time for it."
And he was very remorseful. He was like,
"it was not something that had ever happened before."
And I took the whole thing as, you know what?
We all make mistakes. I just--I let it go.
We were very in love, so we decided to live together
After about a year and a half of dating.
And that brings us to about christmas,
December 2015, and there was a beautiful treasure hunt
On christmas day for my gift.
And when you followed the clue,
There was a piece of jewelry at the end of each clue,
Until it came to a large carat-and-a-half solitaire,
Which was really beautiful.
And he came over,
And he actually got on his knees and proposed.
I didn't really say yes,
Because I said I wasn't gonna get married,
But I'd wear the ring.
The thing was, it was a commitment.
I was just looking for a companion.
After that, things began to change.
♪ ♪
We didn't have any incidences,
But he wasn't his happy, happy, cheerful self.
Things were fine.
It's just, it was a little bit colder than normal,
You know, but that happens, so time went on.
♪ ♪
And then I was like, "the energy is changing.
Something's wrong," and a friend of mine
Knew that I wasn't my normal bubbly-bubbly
And asked me what was up.
And she said, "it's the boyfriend, isn't it?"
And I'm like, "yeah. It's the boyfriend."
And she said, "well, what is it?"
And I said, "that I don't know."
I could just tell something was different,
And this feeling was getting really stronger.
So my friend, who did background checks for a living,
Said, "hey, girl. You need to take $2
"and go to the city where he used to live,
"and from there, you'll get a police report.
"and if anything's going on,
It's gonna be your first clue of where he's at."
So I did that.
I went to the sheriff's department...
♪ ♪
And then, when I got there,
They said there was more than one.
How much cash did I bring?
Because there were several reports,
And they're $2 each.
♪ ♪
A really nice deputy sheriff walked up,
And he said, "you look unfamiliar with those."
I said, "I am. I've never read one before."
He said, "I thought."
He goes, "I can help you with that,"
So he started reading these reports, and he said,
"there's a lot more to this than you realize,
"because on this judgment, he has an inmate number,
So you don't know what this is about, do you?"
And I was like, "no, sir. I don't."
He said, "just take a breath.
You've got something going on here."
He had been charged with attempted manslaughter,
And this was a woman. There was no dude.
It wasn't a man.
♪ ♪
There was a woman
That he'd actually boot-stomped a woman's face.
♪ ♪
And I was absolutely horrified.
♪ ♪
I was really pretty in shock
Because I didn't see any of this coming...
♪ ♪
So I continued to look for police reports,
And it took me almost a week.
I found out that he was out of prison for six months,
From that assault, when he met me.
I was terrified because of the contrast.
His actions were loving, sweet, calm, peaceful.
He went to yoga with me and did the meditations.
It was beautiful, and then I find out
That he had a trail of charges in the state of tennessee.
I was like, "oh, no."
I didn't know this person,
Because people don't live in that type of a contrast,
Not in a healthy state.
♪ ♪
- So all of this was quite a surprise to us.
We didn't know anything was going on,
And she kept it to herself.
I don't think she wanted to worry us
Because there are seven kids.
We were very involved in each other's lives.
Everything seemed very chill
Because he was very calm all the time.
He never yelled. He wasn't angry.
So it was quite a surprise and caught us all off-guard.
- So I knew I was in trouble with this guy
Living in my house, so I went home,
And I pulled up, and he said, "what are you doing home?"
Because it was an odd time of day for me to be home,
But I'd taken off work to go on my trail
Of finding documents and sheriff's departments.
So I said, "hey, I have some information
That doesn't settle with me."
I said, "you told me you got in a fight with a man."
I said, "you know, I don't want to go into the story.
"what I want you to understand is, I am not comfortable
"with someone living in my house,
Let alone being my partner, with this type of past."
I said, "I can't--you lied about it, you know,
And you need to leave."
And I'll never forget.
He was at the top of the driveway,
And he was cutting a piece of plywood
With an electric saw,
The skill saw,
And he stopped running the saw,
And he looked up at me.
And it was a look I'd never seen in his face before,
And he was so dark.
His eyes were dark and slanted, and he looked at me.
He turned his head up and said, "I could kill you right now,"
♪ ♪
And I was like, "oh, wow. We are on."
It was like this whole other entity
Was embodying him,
So I called 911.
So he was really upset about that, and he drove off.
So to find out that information and then him
To full-on verbally threaten me--I was afraid.
The police got there. They took me downtown
To file for an order of protection,
Is how that goes,
And it was granted on the spot.
So two days later-- that's when it all started.
He entered the house,
And I knew he had entered the house,
Because I had an african mutated water frog
That was 20 years old, and he killed my frog.
♪ ♪
It was very unsettling,
And that's when it all started.
I woke up the next morning,
And I always go out on the back porch
And have tea in the morning,
Do a little meditation, little yoga.
And there was a gift and a note on my table,
And the gift was a threshold plate for a door.
We were redoing some doors at the house,
And he left that on the table with a note that said,
"I bought this 'cause I wanted you to have it.
Let's work this out."
So I called 911, and they came,
And I told the officer that I had been granted
A order of protection.
And then the officer looked at me, and he said,
"you know, I'm not gonna call this in.
"I'm not gonna allow you,
"on a whim of a note that we don't know who wrote,
The ability to ruin this man's life."
And then I changed the locks,
All the windows, all the doors.
Everything was locked down.
The evening of the third day,
I had gone asleep,
Sitting on my living room couch,
And I was sitting there,
And I felt someone staring at me.
And I turned my head towards the window and opened my eyes.
♪ ♪
And there he was, staring at me, and he said,
"you don't want to do this. You're making a big mistake.
We can work this out without the police being involved."
So I called 911 again.
They come out and take a report.
So then, the next day, I'm working
On the flower shop.
And I heard something, and I looked out,
And tony was in the front hedge,
And he was running across the yard,
And took a right to go back up into the woods.
So of course, I called 911 again.
♪ ♪
So my friend who suggested
The sheriff's department called me up,
And she said, "vickie," she said,
"you know, I know that you're nonviolent.
I know that you don't want any harm."
She said, "but this is gonna get you killed."
♪ ♪
"this is not going away."
She goes, "you need to come out.
"I have a registered gun that I can loan you
To protect yourself with."
And I said, "I'll be there tomorrow."
So I went to see my friend,
And I took this little .45 on home with me.
- We grew up with guns in the house.
My dad was a deputy sheriff,
And he taught small arms training school,
So we knew what a gun looked like.
We knew it was serious.
We knew that, if you had a gun in your hand,
That it was to protect yourself,
So I'm very glad that she had the gun.
♪ ♪
- The day that I got that gun, I fell asleep on the couch,
And I woke up,
And he had his face pressed up against the glass.
♪ ♪
And I had the gun in my lap, and I dialed 911,
And I told him. I said, "I have a gun.
He's here, on the front porch," and he ran off.
♪ ♪
I called a locksmith again, and he told me.
He said, "look, you need an alarm system,
"because these guys gotta be caught.
No one can catch him."
So I took his advice, and I called an alarm system company.
They said they'd be there the next morning, at 8:00 a.M.
So my youngest daughter came over.
She knew I was really nervous.
I couldn't sleep in the house that night.
I didn't want him coming in and her being there,
Her see what was gonna happen, or be a victim to something.
So we went and stayed with a friend of hers,
And the plan was to be at the house at 8:00 a.M.
The next morning for installation.
♪ ♪
- In 2016, I am installing security systems
In commercial and residential homes.
Usually, on a normal call, it's a very simple process.
You walk in, meet the customer, hang the stuff up,
And get out of there.
This was not one of those calls.
So I pull up to the home, meet miss martin outside the home,
And she kinda explains to me why I'm there.
As I survey the home, I can tell it's a larger home.
It's gonna take me about 3-4 hours.
- My daughter needed to go to work, so I told the guy.
I said, "I'm gonna take her to work."
- And I can't be inside somebody's home
If they're not there,
So I leave to go get some breakfast
As she takes her daughter to work.
- So we both drove off,
And we said that we would communicate on the way back,
So we'd return at the same time,
Because he's on a schedule.
And when I came back, he had left his notebooks
And programming information
About the alarm system upstairs, in the kitchen.
That information was at the bottom of the driveway.
Now, this driveway's almost a half a mile.
- As I'm eating breakfast, I get a call from miss martin.
She's very upset and wanted me
To come back to the home immediately.
I pull up to miss martin's house.
She meets me at the end of the driveway,
Asking me if I did this.
- I asked him.
I said, "look, I've got 911 on the line.
Did you leave these?"
- My answer was, "no, ma'am." I knew that I didn't do that,
Because I had left it inside of her kitchen.
- So I told her what was going on,
And so she advised me, "stay away from the house,"
And that they would call units.
And two police officers pulled up.
♪ ♪
- Ask us a lot of questions:
If I have seen any kind of forced entry,
If I've seen anybody in the home.
- They entered the house, and then they left.
- So next, I go back to work getting miss martin protected.
- And I had a chair that I would sit in,
And on the ottoman in front of it,
I put my laptop,
And to my right was my bedside table.
I had my cell phone charger there,
And I called my friend, and I said, "he's in the house,
"and the police have been here, and they said he's not here,
But I feel him, and I know it's going down today."
"it sounds like you're calling to tell me goodbye,"
And I said, "you know, I kinda feel like I am.
I just want you to know I love you, and kiss the kids."
And so we got off the phone, and I set my phone
Down on my bedside table with the phone charger in it,
'cause that phone was my lifeline,
Because this was day nine.
And I was using it all day to call the police,
And I kept up with that phone.
So I set it down,
And the alarm installation guy came in,
And he said, "miss martin, I'm done here,
And this is the part
Where we install the app to your telephone."
- So I asked her to go get her phone.
- So I reached over to grab my phone,
And the phone was gone.
♪ ♪
I said, "cooper, dial my landline number,"
Because my landline is always forwarded to my cell phone,
For business.
And I just realized, in that moment,
That it hadn't rang all day.
- So I made the phone call.
The phone goes straight to voice mail.
- So I knew he had disabled my landline.
- At this point, miss martin starts to hyperventilate.
- I said, "cooper, this is going down right now,
"and you need to get out.
He's in the house. Dial 911."
And I jumped out of my chair, and I grabbed the revolver.
- She starts repeating,
"he's in here. He's in here,"
And then pulls out a gun.
When she pulls out the gun,
I'm personally feeling a little uneasy,
So at this point, I go around the house.
I check in five bedrooms,
Two bathrooms, a workspace, and nobody's there.
- And I've got this gun, and I reentered my bedroom.
I knew he was in there. I could feel him.
I felt like I could almost smell him
Because the feeling was so intense.
And I looked at the foot of the bed,
And I pulled the bed skirt up,
And I leaned down, and I saw him.
♪ ♪
And I told him, "I see you under my bed.
Give me my phone."
And he didn't let go of the phone,
And I leaned down with that revolver.
Said, "give me my phone."
♪ ♪
- After I searched the upstairs of the home and realized
That there's no forced entry-- I haven't seen anything,
At this point-- I walk back downstairs,
And then I hear a boom.
I walk into the bedroom. I see miss martin.
She's holding the gun, pointing at the bed,
And I don't see anyone.
I ask miss martin, "did you just shoot that gun?"
And she says, "he's under the bed. He's under the bed."
Next, I ask for miss martin to hand me the pistol.
She says, "no, no," and fires another shot at the ground.
- But I didn't hit him. I hit the baseboard again.
I knew what I was doing.
- I go into the bathroom and call 911.
I'm in the bathroom, just thinking,
"I don't know if there's somebody under the bed
Or if miss martin is just having a mental break."
- He still didn't give me the phone, and I said,
"give me my phone now!
I shot it again. I shot him in the left foot.
I said, "I'm not kidding. Give me the [bleep] phone,"
And he screamed, "vick, I'm hit! I'm hit!"
And then I shot that gun at the baseboard.
I told him. I said, "don't ever say my name again."
- Then I hear miss martin say,
"I've got one more bullet in this gun,
And it's got your name on it."
- And he threw that phone out, 'cause he heard that
In my voice, and I was really serious.
- I'm on the phone, and I tell 911
The location where we're at, so I go outside
And meet the police at the end of the driveway.
- So he gave me the phone.
I dialed 911 and put it on speaker.
So I said, "this is vickie martin,
"and I'm holding tony gunter under my bed.
I've shot him," and they said, "we know,"
And they said, "miss martin, go outside."
And I said, "oh, I will not go outside.
You can't catch him, and this is where it ends."
♪ ♪
- So about five police officers show up,
As well as a medical unit.
I'm relieved to see the police, but at the same time,
I'm worried for miss martin still inside the home.
Police go into the side door.
- And I heard them bust through,
And then, all of a sudden, I heard a voice, and it said,
"drop the gun."
And I said, "I will not drop this gun,"
And the officer repeated himself.
He said, "I'm only gonna say this one more time.
Drop the gun,"
And I was like, "oh, wow. This is happening."
So I set the gun down very quickly.
They rushed the room.
They handcuffed me, and then they took me up the stairs.
As they were beginning to take me up the stairs,
They dragged tony out from under the bed.
- It takes about five to ten minutes,
And then someone comes out on the stretcher,
And it's not miss martin.
I just see a very large man
With blood coming from his ankle.
Oh, my gosh.
There was somebody there the whole time.
I searched the entire house,
Except for the one place he was, which was the same room
I had been working in the whole time.
- So I saw them take him out from under the bed
And take him out of the house,
And at that point, they took me upstairs,
And they sat me at my kitchen table.
I started to go into shock,
And I saw two officers that I recognized.
They came in,
And one told them
To get the handcuffs off of me now.
And the other female officer walked up, and she said,
"vickie, tony was arrested." and she looked at me.
She said, "vickie, look at me."
She goes, "you're going into shock," and I looked at her.
I said, "please don't let that happen."
And she took me through this breath pattern,
And that my eyes started to regulate again,
And the brain started to calm down,
And I could breathe.
♪ ♪
- This whole experience is just,
First off, eye-opening.
I think of miss martin as a very strong, strong woman
Who had all odds against her, nobody believing her,
And still persevered.
- She stood up for herself and defended herself
And took all the proper steps that she needed to,
And she's still here with me today.
So I'm very proud that she was able to make a decision
That was, I think, for the best, at the moment.
- We never found out how he was entering
And exiting the house.
Sometimes life just happens, and you don't see it coming,
And you don't know.
And you have to be ready to put your best forward,
To take good care of yourself,
To find that beautiful being that you really are,
And love yourself enough to go through the recovery effort.
And because of all of this,
I became a kundalini yoga instructor.
I opened up my own studio,
And I opened up a teacher training school,
So it can be really sweet on the other side.
♪ ♪
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- In 2019, I'm living in knoxville, tennessee.
- Me and paul met about six, seven, years ago
In a mexican restaurant in knoxville.
I saw him sitting at the bar, so I kind of guided my friends,
So that we could sit near him.
And we struck up conversation, and was a very funny guy,
So he made me laugh.
We switched numbers,
And then we started seeing each other.
- We really got along very, very well,
And things were getting serious.
- My daughter and I were living in an apartment,
And a couple years later, paul moved in with us.
We knew that we wanted to live in the north knox area,
And the apartment was just too small for all three of us,
So we found this great house for rent.
So we pull up to look at the house, the first time,
And I immediately notice the big, covered front porch.
It had some nice bushes in the front,
And I could tell it was really old,
And I love old houses.
They just have a lot of character.
And immediately, we knew that's where we wanted to live.
- It was just a much better situation:
More space, all renovated, very pretty well taken care of.
♪ ♪
- Our neighborhood is the historic north knoxville area.
It's called happy holler.
- It's a very nice neighborhood.
- Big, beautiful victorian houses.
Sidewalks lined with trees.
- Close to everything.
- Local breweries, restaurants.
- "neighbors look out for neighbors" kind of place.
- So we walk in, and it's a big living room.
To the left is the first bedroom.
It's big.
On the left is another huge bedroom.
Big bathroom on the right, and there's a huge kitchen
And another big deck on the back.
And it had a big backyard that was fenced in.
- So our house was built in 1910.
It's an old house. Some things would happen.
Creaks. Noises.
♪ ♪
- One night, it was about 3:00 in the morning.
We were all sleeping, and above the living room fireplace,
I have a huge picture hanging.
And somehow, the picture falls off of the wall
And goes smashing to the ground,
Making this huge noise.
All of us just come running out
At the same time like, "what?
Ah! What's going on?"
So I notice, after the picture fell,
And we were picking up all the glass,
That the hook it was on is still attached to the wall.
So I know that the hook did not break,
And it just fell off the wall.
It seemingly, like, was picked up and dropped.
There are good things about old houses,
And then there are the bad things,
Because you often wonder, "what if that was a ghost?"
♪ ♪
- It's a regular Wednesday.
Michelle-- she's up at 7:00 a.M.
She leaves the house at 7:30.
Madison--I believe she was actually away that night,
Staying somewhere else. I was due to go to a job site,
And then, at the last minute, it got canceled for the day.
I was elated to have the odd day off
During the week,
Which didn't normally happen for me.
I was blissfully alone,
Enjoying my day lying on the couch,
Remote in hand, coffee in other hand,
Watching clips of my football team
And just enjoying myself.
Well, as I was watching tv, I hear a thud
From the first bedroom adjacent to the living room.
It sounds like something heavy and metallic
That has fallen on the floor.
And then I'm thinking maybe the light from above
Fell from the ceiling,
So I put the remote control down.
I get up. I walk to the door.
I open it. I look in.
At first, I don't see a ceiling light on the floor,
But I do see a radiator pipe
Next to the hole it was sitting in.
It was a good 18 inches away from the hole,
And I was thinking,
"how on earth did this get out of that hole?"
So I get on my hands and knees,
And I can immediately see
That there's some sort of ambient light down there,
Which is unusual,
Because there shouldn't be any light down there.
So I get even closer, to the point where I'm maybe
6 inches, 12 inches, away from the hole,
And there is a green eyeball
Staring directly up at me through the hole.
And immediately, I am floored.
I went from curious to terrified
In less than a second.
It is 100% a human eyeball.
The crawlspace is three feet deep.
There's no animal on earth that can navigate itself
To the underside of that hole other than a human being.
♪ ♪
So I'm leaning back on all fours.
I go back to the hole. I can see light.
I can see where the source of light is.
It's a single light bulb, so now he's illuminated,
And it's a caucasian gentleman.
Really scraggly. Dirty hair.
He's filthy. He's got dirty pants on,
And he's not responding back to me.
And I realize that there's something
Really, really wrong with this guy.
And he was sort of crawling on his hands and knees,
And I get up, and I say,
"what are you doing in my crawlspace?
Who are you?"
And he's still moving slowly and just creeping out of view,
Into the darkness.
It's completely chilling and unnerving.
I was thinking that maybe he was down there,
Stealing metal or stealing copper.
This guy is up to no good, and I am now full-on terrified.
I gotta protect myself, at this point.
I have no idea what this guy's capable of,
And immediately, I go for my gun.
♪ ♪
It's a recreational kind of gun.
It's just a little fun gun you shoot out in the woods,
Shoot cans with, but he doesn't know that.
So I go back to the hole. I'm just freaking out.
My heart is racing.
I'm physically shaking at this point.
Looking back, I should have called the cops sooner,
Because I don't know if he's armed,
And his behavior suggests that, whatever it is, it's awful.
So after I look in the hole,
And I see that he's no longer there,
I call into the hole. I say, "dude, I got a gun.
"you've gotta get out from under my house.
I don't want to shoot you."
Now, I can hear things jangle.
He's knocking into pipes and ductwork,
And I can place him in the crawlspace
Somewhere below the floor in the hallway.
And I get up, and I go to the hallway,
And I call down through the floor, "dude, I have a gun.
I don't want to shoot you," and I discharge.
I hit the lever on the gun,
So that a bullet flies out of the gun, lands on the floor,
So that he can hear that bullet clanking above his head.
I wanted him to know I'm in business.
So he is still moving towards what is my back deck,
And I'm following.
And the whole time, I'm taking the butt of my gun
And physically hitting the floor
Above where I think his head is.
I hear now that he's gone underneath the porch,
And so I open the back door to the porch from the kitchen,
And I walk out there.
And well, now, there's floorboards,
And now I can clearly see him
Basically cowering in the corner.
So I have this guy pinned,
And that's when I see these two industrial-looking bottles
Clearly say muriatic acid on them.
And now I know I'm dealing with something
That is--it's even scarier than I thought.
At that point, I pulled out my cell phone,
And that's when I called 911.
And the first thing I say is,
"this is gonna be the most interesting call
You've had all day. I guarantee it."
So the operator asked me, "what is your emergency?"
I said, "I have a person under my house, in the crawlspace.
I don't know if he has a gun,
But I have him pinned down sort of in the corner of my house,
But I'm not prepared to chase him out."
The operator tells me, you know,
"just go to a safe spot in your house
"and wait for the police.
It shouldn't be any time at all."
And honestly it was seven minutes,
They were there exactly,
And out walks a gentleman and a lady officer.
They said, "I hear you got a strange problem,"
And I said, "well, officer, yes I do."
And so I take the officer down the driveway,
To the side of the house, and I say,
"he's gotten himself into the corner of the house,
And that's' where he is."
The gentleman officer then--he draws his weapon immediately,
Pulls out his flashlight,
Gets on his hands and knees, and goes right in,
Under the crawlspace, after this guy.
I mean, at this point,
I'm almost more scared than I ever was
'cause I'm afraid there's gonna be a shootout under my house.
And I just get out of the way and let them handle it,
As best they can.
It takes maybe ten minutes,
And then I see the cop out of the hole with a guy.
Then that's when I had the shock of all shocks.
They pull out a black guy.
♪ ♪
So I see the officer arresting this black gentleman,
And I'm wondering, "where is the scraggly-haired white guy
With the green eye? Where is he?"
When I called 911, I said, "caucasian male.
Pants. Dirty," and I was like,
"how on earth did I get this backwards?"
I tell the female officer. I'm like, "this isn't right."
She's like, "no. We got the guy."
I'm like, "I don't know. I don't think so."
And she's like, "this was the guy
And the only guy under the house."
- So it was around 10:30, and I am at work,
And I hear my phone, that I got a text,
And I notice it's paul.
So I open the text, and the first thing I see--
That a man is being arrested at my house.
And his message says, "we had a phrogger under our house,
But everything's okay now."
I'm immediately thinking they broke in
And tried to rob us,
So I call him immediately, you know.
Like, "what the hell is going on?"
And that's when he told me about the green eye
Peeping at him through the hole.
♪ ♪
When I talked to paul on the phone,
He reassured me that he was okay,
But he was pretty upset.
- After I got off the phone with her,
That's when it really hit me that this could have went
Very, very badly, and I feel partly relieved,
But also, I'm feeling, like, edgy, you know.
I mean shock. I don't know what it was.
And so I decided to just go relax and have a beer.
♪ ♪
So I walk into the bar, and I know the bartender.
We're very good friends.
He's like, "paul, you're in a bit early today,"
And I say, "well, have I got a story for you.
It's been a busy morning."
I start telling him the story,
And he says, "wait a second.
A white guy and a black guy?"
I said, "well, I thought I saw a white guy,
But they arrested a black guy."
So the bartender says,
"this sounds exactly like two guys we had here
Last night that were trouble." what?
He's like, "yeah, we sure did," so then I said to the guy,
You know, "you have security cameras all over, don't you?"
And he said, "we sure do."
So we're going through the footage, and sure enough,
There are the two guys, and I see him.
There's the white guy.
That's the guy with the green eyeball.
I'm not crazy, and I didn't make it up.
And I think, "this guy's probably still under my house."
♪ ♪
So, like, after speaking with the bartender a little bit,
I realize I've gotta call the police again.
And so I call the police back,
And I say, "you're not gonna believe this,
But I didn't make that white guy up."
They knew who I was immediately.
I got right to the detective,
Because he gave me his card earlier,
And I said, "I'm at the bar around the corner.
"I've just reviewed the security camera footage
"with the bartender,
"and this white guy definitely exists
"and probably is still under my house.
You guys have to come back."
And I walk back over to my house.
I meet the same two officers there,
And--"the guy's still under there.
You gotta get him out," and the officer,
Who was the initial guy to go under the house--
He's like, "well, I'm not going back under there."
What? He's like, "well, you go under there."
And I'm like, "what?" and then, you know,
The thought of having to sleep in this house
And not knowing if he's down there or not
Was just too overwhelming,
And so I get my rifle,
And I go under the house.
I'm shaking all over again, but I'm determined.
So I go in the crawlspace,
And it's extremely claustrophobic.
And I mean, my heart is racing.
I don't know where this guy could be,
And you're just shining a flashlight into the dark.
So I start on hands and knees and almost end up on my belly,
Into the corners of the house.
The whole time, I was calling out,
"dude, if you're under here, now's your chance.
"I got a rifle in my hand.
"there are two officers right outside the crawlspace doors.
"there is nowhere for you to go.
"if you are under here,
"you better reveal yourself and just get out,
"because I don't want to mistakenly shoot you,
And I assure you these police do not want to shoot you."
And I did that through the entirety of the house.
Front deck. Back deck.
There was insulation sort of lying around,
And I was afraid maybe he was hiding under that.
So all in all,
It took me a good half an hour to clear that space,
To make absolutely 100% sure this guy wasn't there.
And he wasn't.
- So I am relieved to find out that paul's fine,
But I thought I should probably post this
On our neighborhood watch social media site.
So I put the picture on and said,
"heads up, everybody.
Make sure your crawlspaces are locked."
- And so I come out of the crawlspace.
I am covered in dirt and cobwebs.
It's in my hair.
♪ ♪
The insulation has made me so incredibly itchy.
It's super hot down there, so I'm kinda sweaty,
And it's just--it's awful.
I tell the officers that this guy's--
"he's gotta be somewhere around,
"and maybe you should make it your business to go find him.
Can't be far," and so they leave.
I've had enough for one day.
♪ ♪
So when I was speaking to the bartender
About the muriatic acid,
And that's when he told me-- he was like,
"well, they cook meth with muriatic acid."
And I was like, "what?" I'm like, "this is crazy."
Whole time I'm thinking the guy could be on meth.
I didn't realize he was making meth under my house.
And now, everything is starting to make sense
Why these guys were under there,
What they were doing, what their intent was.
That's when I realized it is super scary.
♪ ♪
They never caught the white guy, to my knowledge.
Where he went, nobody knows.
- When it was all done,
And we were sitting at home relaxing that evening,
I felt still anxious about the situation,
A little violated.
I thought about the horror of what could have happened.
They could have blown up our house.
They could have hurt us.
If me and my daughter were there alone and paul wasn't,
I don't know what I would have done.
I was relieved, because if he hadn't been home,
We may have never discovered these guys.
♪ ♪
- I guess the lessons I learned are,
Number one, it can happen to anybody.
And just common sense things
That you can and should do to protect your home.
That day, I bought padlocks and mechanisms
To lock both hatch doors.
I will never, ever forget that eyeball.
I never thought, in a million years,
Anybody would go into my crawlspace,
Because who the heck would want to?
But in retrospect,
Knowing that there are very desperate people out there
Who do very desperate things,
Part of me says they must have been there before,
Because in order to find that light switch,
You sort of have to know where you're going to find it.
And that is truly terrifying
Knowing that I had a phrogger infestation.
♪ ♪
- I heard rustling thumps underneath our feet.
- Amanda looks at me and goes,
"there's somebody underneath the floor."
- Are we dreaming? Is this real?
- Definitely someone is here now.
Like, the door is locked.
- I told my parents I was gonna go take a shower.
- And that's when we heard the blood-curdling scream.
- [screams]
- You can just see the fear in her face, and she's crying.
- And she screamed, "there's a man in my closet!"