[keyboard clacking]
- [exhale]
[eerie music]
- One day, I go into the second floor bathroom,
And the toilet seat is left up.
- I hear a bloodcurdling scream.
- I immediately take a step back,
And I see bloodstains.
- There's someone in our laundry room,
Up in the attic.
- Someone jumps out from behind my door
And grabs me by the mouth.
♪ ♪
- Man found hiding between a family's walls...
- Intruder secretly living inside her attic...
- Man slithers out from under home...
- Make sure your crawl spaces are locked...
- I hear footsteps.
I'm vulnerable, naked, and someone is in my house.
- There was somebody violating my home.
- I wanna believe it's in my head.
- It's a giant man's handprint.
- You came into my home. You invaded my privacy.
[high-pitched screaming]
- We had a phrogger in our house.
♪ ♪
[tense droning music plays]
♪ ♪
- In 2019, I was living in my home
In pittsburgh, pennsylvania,
With my two daughters and two cats.
- I live next door to kate flory
With my fiancée, madison,
In brighton heights outside of pittsburgh.
- It's one of the quieter neighborhoods in pittsburgh.
It feels almost like a suburb.
- There is a lot of people who own their homes
And have been there quite a long time.
- Quiet streets, walkable parks,
Trees, kids running around.
- Just really nice community, friendly people.
- Just an old-school neighborhood.
When I originally bought my home in brighton heights,
I was still married to my husband,
And we had our two young children, ages six and eight.
In addition to my two daughters,
I have two cats, lucky and layla.
They're really important to us.
When my husband and I divorced,
My girls and I decided to get the cats as the new additions
To our family, and they've been with us ever since.
♪ ♪
I work as a full-time bookkeeper,
And as a single mom, moving into this home
Was a dream of mine that I'd had
Since before I even imagined
My children existing on the planet.
♪ ♪
The month that I closed on the house was October,
And, to my delight,
Exactly what I wanted to happen happened on Halloween.
Kids everywhere, trick-or-treating, having fun,
Neighbors all out on their porches,
Watching the kids run by.
It's so much fun--people decorate, and they go all out.
That's exactly what I had imagined
When I bought the house, and that's what happened.
It's everything I really wanted and pictured for my kids.
♪ ♪
- Kate was living there
When my fiancée and I moved in next door,
And she was constantly outside,
Playing with her daughters.
They would be doing chalk art on the sidewalk
Or dressing them up as princesses
And going on adventures,
And, you know, getting them little push scooters
And going up and down the street.
It was a very loving relationship
That she has with her daughters.
Kate, as a neighbor, is generally
Very calm and collected.
She'd sit out on her porch in the evenings,
Talk to the neighbors, play with the kids,
And then go inside, and I would never hear a peep
Until the lights went off at night.
We got to know each other by talking from porch to porch
Because we were very close, proximity-wise.
- My home is a three-story home.
We have a large living room, big kitchen,
Three bedrooms on the second floor, full bathroom,
With a finished attic and a basement with stone walls
And two little rooms off the side
That tend to get a lot of water when it rains in them as well.
♪ ♪
My home is over 80 years old,
Which has its quirks to it:
Creaky stairs, pipes that bang,
Windows that make noise for who knows what reason.
That's just how older houses are--
They say their bones are settling.
I don't know what you call it, but older homes are noisy.
[tense music plays]
♪ ♪
One evening, I'm doing laundry in the basement...
[creaking]
And I look out of the corner of my eye,
And I see a blanket.
It's very fluffy and fuzzy-- gray blanket
Sitting there on the dirt floor, crumpled up.
And there was absolutely nothing in that room.
I didn't store anything in that room
Because water would come in.
I--I felt something was off.
♪ ♪
It creeped me out because I didn't own that blanket.
I had never seen that blanket.
This was not a blanket that was one of my children's.
Nobody else lived in the house with me.
It was me and my daughters.
There's no way it should have been there.
♪ ♪
When I saw it, I felt,
"it's fine. You're being paranoid.
It's just a blanket."
But I really, in the back of my mind, thought,
"I know everything in my house,
And this blanket was not my blanket."
♪ ♪
So after I see this blanket in the basement,
I called my friend, and she told me
To take a picture of it and then come back the next day
And see if it had moved or not.
So I took a picture of the blanket,
Meanwhile feeling a little silly,
But I had this feeling, so I did it.
The next day, I came down to the basement,
And the blanket seemed to be in the same spot.
So I just thought, maybe it was here
When I moved in and I never noticed it.
Or maybe it was in a bag of donations
That I never noticed.
So I tried to forget about it.
I left the blanket alone at that point.
I--it creeped me out, to look at it, first of all,
And I just--I didn't know where it had come from.
♪ ♪
- So one day, I was walking out of my house,
And kate shouts hello to me,
And she tells me that something weird happened in her house.
[door hinges squeak]
- One day, I go into the second-floor bathroom,
And the toilet seat is left up.
- And I thought, that's odd.
It's only girls there, so why would that happen?
She said, "I think I'm goin' a little crazy.
Maybe I forgot. Maybe I was cleaning it."
[ominous creaking]
- I live with my daughters, and my mother was visiting.
There is no reason the toilet seat should be up.
- She thought that was strange,
But why would you think anything of that
When nothing ever happens in this neighborhood
Or in her house?
- So I thought, well, maybe, you know,
My mom likes to clean when she visits.
Maybe she cleaned the toilet and left it up.
♪ ♪
- And then we kind of just passed over it
Without thinking a second thought of it.
[ominous droning]
- Two weeks later, she came to visit,
And I asked her about it, and she said,
"no, I didn't-- I didn't do that."
And then it happened again,
And then a third time.
Very odd.
There had to be something strange.
Even my ex-husband didn't come in
To use the bathroom when he would pick up the kids.
He would just pick them up and leave.
I didn't have visitors, any male friends
Come over or anything like that.
At this point, I really started to wonder--
The toilet seat combined with the blanket,
And just a general uneasy feeling.
I really started to ask myself if somebody was in my house.
It felt so ridiculous
To think about calling the police and saying,
"excuse me, officer, my toilet seat has been left up."
It sounds ridiculous.
But I really felt something was wrong--
I really did.
♪ ♪
So when my mom was visiting,
And the toilet seat started being left up,
I told my mom that I was feeling leery.
And she started panicking a bit,
And got the flashlight on her phone,
And had my brother on speakerphone,
And she started peering around in dark corners.
♪ ♪
She crept down the stairs in the basement...
♪ ♪
Peered into the little room where the blanket was,
And tried to see if anybody was hiding under there.
She looked underneath the dark stairway
In the basement with her flashlight,
So she was looking.
♪ ♪
I thought my big brother and my mom were overreacting.
They tend to be very protective of me,
And I thought,
"I'll just humor them, maybe give them some peace of mind."
♪ ♪
But I started noticing noises that were harder to explain.
I would be lying in bed at night,
The kids would be asleep, and I would hear what sounded
Like somebody walking down the stairs or a door opening.
And it just seemed very different
Than your normal creaky, old house sounds.
It sounded like somebody was moving around in my house.
♪ ♪
[floorboards creaking]
When you have these kinds of thoughts,
You almost don't want to tell anybody
Because you sound like you're losing your mind a little bit,
And you think, "is this a ghost?
Is this an intruder? Am I imagining this?"
Some of these things you keep to yourself,
'cause it just sounds so outlandish.
But it kept happening.
♪ ♪
My kids have visitation
With their dad every other weekend,
And this particular Saturday morning,
They were visiting with their dad for the weekend.
And so I was home alone. I was using the time
To get caught up on some housework,
And I was in the kitchen.
It was late morning, early afternoon.
I was cooking. I was cleaning.
[clattering]
And I heard some banging noises upstairs, and I thought,
"those cats really must be doing something up there."
I really thought maybe it was the cats.
These cats are really rambunctious.
They jump on things. They knock things over.
They jump on you while you're sleeping.
They are noisy critters.
It was so loud and so deliberate
That I just had to go up and see what it was.
♪ ♪
I walk up the stairs to the second floor,
And I decided to go check in my bedroom.
[floorboards creaking]
The door was slightly ajar.
♪ ♪
And I go to open it further to enter.
♪ ♪
And suddenly...
Someone jumps out from behind my door
And grabs me by the mouth.
♪ ♪
- I walk up the stairs to the second floor,
And I decided to go check in my bedroom.
The door was slightly ajar.
And I go to open it further to enter,
And a man jumps out from behind my door
And grabs me by the mouth.
I started flailing and fighting him off.
I then managed to break away
And ran as fast I could out of my room,
Down my stairs, and out my front door.
[door creaking]
- I had worked the night shift previously,
And I went to bed around 5:00 a.M.
I was pretty tired.
And it was a clear morning, and it was around--
I think it was around 10:00 or 11:00 a.M.,
And I shot up out of bed...
- [screaming]
- Because I hear a bloodcurdling scream
Coming from the street
Like something I've never heard before.
It's a scream that most people
Have never heard in their actual life.
It was true terror coming out of someone's voice.
- [screaming]
- I immediately knew something was wrong.
So I threw my shorts on, put my glasses on,
And grabbed my gun, and ran straight outside
To see what was going on.
When I got outside, I see kate trembling,
Screaming in the middle of the street,
Pointing at the house,
Screaming something along the lines of,
"he attacked me. He's in there.
Please don't let him get away."
I do have some training when it comes to firearms,
And I have experience in some martial arts as well,
So when I saw my neighbor trembling in fear,
I kind of just snapped into action.
It was kind of second nature.
And I didn't really think about
If I was putting myself in danger.
It was kind of just, gosh, you need to protect this woman.
So I just immediately ran in between our houses
Through the little corridor...
♪ ♪
And turned the safety off on my gun
And turned the laser sight on.
And I stood at the back to cover the house,
To make sure whoever this person is doesn't leave.
♪ ♪
- So I'm on the sidewalk, on my knees,
In front of my house, crying and screaming.
♪ ♪
All of my neighbors are surrounding me.
My fear, at this point,
Is that I didn't want him to escape.
♪ ♪
So I stayed there on my sidewalk,
Right in front of my door.
- At this point, my fiancée had called 911.
So I'm in the back, and my heart
Was beating out of my chest,
And my eyes are darting--
Window, window, door, window, just checking.
I saw a little bit of movement in one window,
Where I think a curtain was kind of pushed,
And I'm assuming that was him trying to escape,
But he did see me, so there was no way to get out.
♪ ♪
The whole street, I think, came out
Within minutes of hearing her scream on the street.
♪ ♪
Immediately after I had ran to the back,
Minutes later, there was also about 10
To 15 people in the front consoling kate.
- All of my neighbors are surrounding me.
I start to hear the cops coming.
I know they're on their way.
And then about six to eight cop cars show up,
And they even brought the k9 unit as well.
- So as my heart's just beating out of my chest,
Not knowing what I'm doing,
Just standing there, ready for whatever could happen,
I just slowly kind of calmed down.
And I heard my fiancée relaying instructions
From the police, from 911, to the neighbors in the front
And to me in the back.
And as the first police officer rolled up,
I holstered my weapon and slowly walked back
Into my house as they took over.
Everyone, as far as neighbors,
Is instructed to go back inside,
And the police are starting to take over the situation.
About 15 officers go into the house,
As 2 or 3 stay outside with kate
As she's behind a police car.
♪ ♪
- The officers ask me what happened.
I explained it to them.
They enter my home and start yelling out
For him to come out with his hands up.
♪ ♪
He doesn't emerge.
♪ ♪
- About 20 minutes go past...
♪ ♪
And all the officers come out with nothing.
Um, very surprised at that,
Because there's no way that she'd be out
On the street screaming if nothing happened.
So we were very perplexed at why they didn't find anything.
♪ ♪
- The next thing that happens is, my neighbor sits me down
On her porch so I can calm down.
She gets me some water, a sweater.
At this point, the officers yelled,
"if you don't come out, we have to bring in the k9 unit."
[aggressive barking]
- They send the k9 unit in.
And I'd say, one minute after the dog goes in,
You hear barking.
[aggressive barking continues]
And about five officers go in to find the dog,
And then, one minute later, they all emerge
With a guy that I've never seen before.
- And I see the officers bring him out in handcuffs,
And I knew this person that was in my house.
♪ ♪
- So the questions running through my mind
As I see this all unfold before me
Are "who is this man?
"what is their relationship,
"if they even have a relationship?
Where did he come from?"
♪ ♪
- Cary was my former tenant.
In 2018, I decided to rent out a room
To bring in a little extra income.
I have a guest room that we barely use,
So I decided to rent it out, just short term.
I just thought it would ease a little bit of the burden off.
It didn't seem like too much of a commitment.
♪ ♪
When I rented the room to cary,
I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
He was a quiet, single young man.
He kept to himself, an artistic type.
And I thought it seemed like a good fit.
He wasn't obtrusive. He wasn't loud.
I thought it would be a simple, quiet exchange.
♪ ♪
Everything was going pretty well,
But after a few months, he stopped paying rent.
He was telling me he was trying to get a job,
But he was having a hard time.
I didn't want to just throw this person
Out on the street, but I couldn't have someone
Renting a room from me and not paying me rent.
♪ ♪
As a single mom,
And a working mom,
Things are hard.
I have a mortgage to maintain, though,
And I am paying that mortgage by myself.
And this was income that I needed
To help support my home and my family.
I told cary that he had to be out by a certain date,
And that date came and went, and he refused to leave.
♪ ♪
Unfortunately, I had to start going
Through a formal eviction process.
♪ ♪
I typed up a letter, just stating my name, cary's name,
Saying, "you have to leave by this date."
And I signed it, dated it, and slid it under his door.
And he, again, refused to leave.
♪ ♪
So I decided to call my local police station.
Then the police came and removed him from my home.
I thought I'd never have to see him
Or deal with him again.
♪ ♪
He confessed to the police
That he had indeed been hiding in my attic.
He looked so disheveled,
Hair greasy, a mess.
- Thin, dirty, scraggly bearded.
- Like he hadn't eaten or slept probably in weeks.
His clothes were really messy and rumpled,
And he was not in good shape.
- His head was down, and they were walking him out
To one of the police vehicles.
- The police led him out of my home in handcuffs
And put him in the police car and took him off to jail.
♪ ♪
- Kate is across the street,
And when they pull this man out of her house,
I see her get very emotional.
She drops to the ground.
She seems scared, crying.
I really didn't know what was going on.
♪ ♪
- When the police escorted him out of my home,
It was a very sad and disturbing sight to see.
It really was-- guys, I'm gonna start crying.
[tearfully] it was so [bleep] up.
♪ ♪
I did a full sweep of my house at that point,
From the basement to my first floor,
Second floor bedrooms, all the way up to the attic.
I found some disturbing items.
It was clear to me that he was camped out there
For quite a while.
There was a makeshift bed,
Several bottles of urine.
♪ ♪
He even had a laptop,
Appears he had been using my wi-fi.
He had food, drinks, a makeshift toilet.
Just evidence of him being in my attic.
The police told me that, apparently,
He came in through an unlocked side door,
And that he simply was tired of being homeless,
And that he wanted to sleep somewhere warm.
[ominous metal creaking]
He had been living, without me knowing,
Right above my daughters' heads and my head as we slept.
[mutters indistinctly]
Yeah.
Cary was ultimately convicted of two felonies
And was sentenced to 18 to 36 months in jail.
♪ ♪
After all the dust settled with this,
I wanted to feel more secure,
So I took some security measures.
I got my locks changed.
I got an alarm system for my windows and doors
To help me feel a little safer.
'cause this is my house, this is my home,
And I want me and my children to feel
That this is our haven.
What I've learned from this
Is that trusting your instinct is really important.
Don't doubt yourself.
I think a lot of people, especially women,
Tend to doubt ourselves.
But you know more than you think you do.
♪ ♪
So over two years later,
I'm still on the same street in brighton heights,
With mostly the same wonderful neighbors,
And it just shows you, I made the right choice moving there.
- I do think that it was very strong of her to stay
And kind of, you know, combat those feelings of being scared
And almost being violated in your own home.
♪ ♪
- I don't want this to make me become jaded in my life.
I don't want this to make me not care for people.
But I also want to make sure
That I keep myself and my family safe.
So I'm trying to find that balance in my life right now.
I'll get there. [laughs]
♪ ♪
[upbeat music]
- My name's pamela bryan.
In 2016 I was living in jacksonville, florida,
With my husband and my youngest son, samuel.
- So we actually purchased the home
From my wife's parents,
Which happened to be the same home where she grew up
And lived in her whole life.
♪ ♪
- Yeah, we offered to buy the house from 'em,
And that's where we raised our sons.
♪ ♪
- Jacksonville, florida, is surrounded by water.
There's rivers, there's creeks,
There's lakes, and everything else.
♪ ♪
- We have a couple of creeks near our home.
They change with the tide, so, you know,
They go low, they go high.
And it was great, too, that my kids were raised
In a time where they could be outside and play
And not feel threatened.
So I'm thankful that they got to experience that.
- In 2016, I was 24 years old,
Living with my parents in jacksonville, florida.
At the time, it was just my parents and myself.
I was actually born and raised in that house.
I have three older brothers.
My brothers eventually moved out.
Then it was just me at the house.
- Samuel's our baby. He's our baby boy.
♪ ♪
- In 2016, my girlfriend, courtney, and I were
In a very serious relationship,
And she said yes to my proposal.
- He showed us that beautiful ring
He bought for her.
He was so happy, so proud.
- And I knew that my boy was seriously in love, you know.
- So the plans after getting engaged
Was for me to move out into an apartment,
Kind of get it furnished and ready.
And then, after me and courtney get married,
Then she would be moving into that apartment with me.
[box clicks shut]
♪ ♪
- The week between christmas and new year's,
Our two oldest grandchildren--
They wanted to come over and spend the night with us.
At the time, they were seven years old.
My granddaughter had spent the night several times before,
But it was the first time for my grandson.
- We played games at night.
We watched movies, popped popcorn.
- The grandkids actually slept in the den.
♪ ♪
I went to bed before midnight, and I did not hear anything.
As a matter of fact, I don't even recall
My wife even coming in-- into the bedroom at night.
♪ ♪
- It was probably 2:00 in the morning
When I finally saw them fall off to sleep
And I was able to, you know,
Turn the lights off and go get ready for bed.
It was probably about 3:00 in the morning
When I laid down.
[insects buzzing]
♪ ♪
- That morning, I woke up around 7:15
To get ready for work.
At the time, I was working
For this company located in jacksonville,
And I was a project manager for that company.
You know, you wear collared shirts there,
Usually buttoned up, or a polo.
So I grabbed some clothes for work,
And what I'd do-- I'd just put my shirt
In the dryer every morning, just to kind of get
A good refresh and have it warm for the workday.
[ominous music]
The house was very quiet.
I was the only one awake at the time.
It was different because I knew that my niece
And nephew had stayed the night,
So they were sleeping out in the family room.
So as you walk into the house, there's a living room,
And then, whenever you walk to the dining room,
If you keep going to the right,
That's where all three bedrooms and the bathroom is.
If you go to the left, you'll end up going to the kitchen,
And then through the kitchen,
It goes into a bigger family room.
If you take the left before you go into the family room,
You'll go out onto the back porch.
If you go to the left,
That is the door that leads into the laundry room.
♪ ♪
So the first thing I noticed:
The laundry room door was closed.
It's never closed.
The laundry room door is never closed.
♪ ♪
My mom's baskets that she usually
Collects is on the floor.
So I tried to open up the laundry room door.
♪ ♪
[door handle rattles]
♪ ♪
It's barricaded by the vacuum cleaner that my mom
Usually keeps right next to the washing machine.
[rattling]
♪ ♪
I didn't know if maybe some clothes
Have gotten behind the vacuum cleaner
That caused the vacuum cleaner to come up a little bit.
And so I'm thinking,
I don't know what it is, but I gotta get ready for work.
So I just kept on pushing the door through.
[booming]
♪ ♪
It's a complete mess.
♪ ♪
And there's mud everywhere.
There's mud on the washer. There's mud on the dryer.
And then, I'm looking a little bit closer,
And I see bloodstains on the dryer.
♪ ♪
I immediately take a step back
And realize that this is bad.
♪ ♪
- There's mud on the washer, there's mud on the dryer...
And I see bloodstains on the dryer.
I realize that this is bad.
[tense music]
I immediately go in and wake up my dad.
♪ ♪
- I was awoken by sammy. He came into the bedroom.
And remember him sort of shake me, "hey, dad. Hey, dad.
Did you happen to be in the laundry room last night?"
I said, "no, son, I have not."
And he goes, "something's not right.
"laundry room's a mess, and there's some mud
Or something on the washing machine."
And my first thought was, maybe just some wild animal
Maybe got in there and they had a little fight.
- I was like, "no, this is no animal.
It's something more than that."
♪ ♪
- I went, "okay," to satisfy him.
I get up and see.
I get out of bed, and of course,
I just have my night attire,
Boxer shorts and a v-neck t-shirt,
You know, and barefooted.
I do see that the laundry room is pretty messed up.
♪ ♪
So I looked up into the ceiling
Of the laundry room,
And I could see a piece of paneling had been torn down
That had been covering two holes
Where the air conditioning unit used to be,
And I just screwed up some plyboard up into that
Just to cover the holes, of course.
It had been ripped down-- I mean ripped.
It was screwed up there. I'm talking about
Maybe 20-24 screws that I put up there.
♪ ♪
- There was no tools, 'cause everything was
In the garage, so it would have taken
Someone with insane superhuman strength
To really just pull that down.
- Of course, you get some goose bumps,
And you're thinking, "something's going on here."
Samuel looked up into this access hole
That had been torn down.
He could see some mud debris
And also three or four spots of blood.
I knew then that this was not good at all.
♪ ♪
- We knew that the only place for him to go was up.
We knew that someone was up in our attic.
- Once you's up in the attic,
You have access to every room in the house.
♪ ♪
I took samuel to the side.
I said, "please go outside, call 911,
And tell them that we think we have an intruder."
And I added that I would be armed.
- He said, "you go call the police.
I'm gonna go get my gun."
My dad has never used that phrase of,
"I'm gonna get my gun."
Something's about to happen,
And it's not gonna be good.
♪ ♪
My initial thought was, "I'm gonna go get my niece.
I'm gonna go get my nephew and make sure they're safe."
♪ ♪
And I tell them to go stay in my room.
♪ ♪
- It's more of a cathedral type of ceiling.
There's no crawl space over that part of the home.
I think he even locked the door behind him
To make sure they were safe.
♪ ♪
- So I dial 911, I call the police,
And I tell them that someone is in our attic.
Can you please send someone right away,
Because, you know, our family's in danger?
♪ ♪
- My husband comes into the bedroom, and he wakes me up.
He says "pam." he goes, "get up."
He goes, "there's someone out in our laundry room."
♪ ♪
So I did take time to make our bed.
I don't know why, just-- I guess habit.
- She was gonna start by making the beds.
[chuckles]
So she--I said "pam, I think we can do this later."
♪ ♪
So I went and got my firearm
And made sure that it was fully loaded.
♪ ♪
- I was very disoriented. I hadn't been to bed very long.
So I'm like, "is he serious? Is this really happening?"
♪ ♪
So I actually walked into the kitchen where he was
To make sure that I heard correctly.
So I walked in there, and I s--
Saw him standing at the back door
In his t-shirt and underwear, holding a gun at our back door.
And I said, "are you serious?"
He goes, "yes, this is serious.
"he's actually out there. There's someone
In our laundry room, up in the attic."
♪ ♪
He goes, "get the kids and take them
Next door to our neighbors."
So that's what I did. I went back there
And got them up, and samuel and I carried them
Over next door to our neighbor's house.
♪ ♪
- I really didn't want them to see anything.
I really didn't want this to be a traumatizing event for them.
♪ ♪
- By this time, I didn't know if it was one,
Two people. Were they were armed?
So I actually yelled up into the attic.
Said, "whoever you are, stay where you are."
I said, "if I do see you, I will shoot you.
"best thing for you to do is to stay where you are
"until the police get here, 'cause they'll be more lenient
And maybe more kind than this homeowner would be."
♪ ♪
- I was talking to the police on the phone,
And she also asked what my dad was wearing at the time,
Because, since he had a gun, whenever they showed up,
They didn't want to shoot my dad instead.
♪ ♪
- Waiting for the police- sometimes, it might be only
Just a couple minutes, but it seems like a lifetime.
I was getting very impatient.
I made my mind up at that point
That if he just ran, let him go.
If we made eye contact,
I was gonna have to pull the trigger.
♪ ♪
I mean, this guy could have came through the ceiling
At any point.
♪ ♪
[police radio chatter]
- So it took a little bit,
But the cops eventually showed up with four cop cars.
♪ ♪
- They did come into the house.
They asked me to disarm, which I did.
And so they walked around a little bit.
And they said, "what makes you think he's in the home still?"
And I explained to him,
The laundry room was barricaded.
You can't do that
From the outside of the laundry room.
It has to be from the inside.
♪ ♪
And there was a call that one of our neighbors,
Down at the end of our street, had reported that they had seen
Some blood and muddy footprints on their driveway.
So they sent their rookie cop down to check this out.
They were, like, not too concerned at the time.
Well, when the rookie cop came back,
He goes, "mr. Bryan, something ain't right."
He had actually followed a trail of mud, blood,
Up every single home in our neighborhood, up to our home.
I had not even seen some of the evidence
On the front porch and the side of the house.
But he came in. He asked to borrow a ladder.
♪ ♪
He did a couple of little hand motions with one of his hands,
And at that time, it all broke loose.
♪ ♪
[man screaming]
I'm in the kitchen. I heard yelling,
Demands from the police officers
To "put your hands up.
Show me your hands. Show me your hands."
Wasn't talking very nice, of course.
♪ ♪
And I remember, I just sort of stuck
My head out the door.
I said, "whatever you do, do not bring him
"through my home.
Take him through the back fence."
I didn't want this guy in the home.
♪ ♪
- I'm talking to my neighbor,
Kind of filling her in on what was going on.
And I just look at my house,
And I see the cops bringing out a man.
♪ ♪
The man just looked extremely muddy,
Just covered in mud.
♪ ♪
- I think he had a pair of shorts on, barefooted.
He had some cuts and bruises on him.
His feet had been chewed up,
I guess when he was walking across this creek.
It was low tide in this marshy area.
I guess he had stepped on some shells and stuff.
- But I noticed how young he looked.
You know, just,
Same age as one of my sons.
And I guess, being a mom, my heart went out to him.
♪ ♪
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- I got a phone call on my cell phone.
It was a police officer.
I answer the phone, he goes, "mr. Bryan,
The young man wants to speak to you."
I went, "what young man?"
And he goes, "the young man we arrested.
He wants to talk to you."
♪ ♪
I approached the car, and he looked up at me--
I'll never forget the look on his face.
He goes, "thank you for not shooting me."
I said, "buddy," I said, "if I would have
Seen your face, I would have shot you."
He goes, "I know you would have,
But thank you for not shooting me."
And at this time, I was like,
"what were you thinking? What's going on, man?"
Well, the young man was-- I guess, had been doing
Some serious drugs.
And he thought people were trying to chase him down
To hurt him, and he just wanted to hide.
He was actually running for his life.
He took my home as refuge.
♪ ♪
- The police told us his name was marcus hull,
And he was charged with trespassing.
♪ ♪
- I think it affected samuel more than any of us.
One, he was a lot younger.
♪ ♪
- When everything sort of died down,
The adrenaline went away.
I just wanted to take a shower
And so I could kind of move on with my life.
I literally went to the shower, and I just cried.
Because the event was over.
Thank god he wasn't armed,
That he wasn't there to hurt us.
But if he was, I--
I still went through the door.
If I would have barged through the laundry room door,
And he was up there, waiting on me with a gun,
It would have been a completely different story.
Phew.
♪ ♪
So I learned a lot about my dad that morning.
The way that he protected the family,
The way that he did.
I can use that for my wife,
For my child that's about to be born.
I know--I know how to protect my house.
- I was prepared to shoot him.
Thank god I did not.
- Just but by the grace of god, that could be one of our boys,
And I'm just so thankful that it turned out the way it did.
- Until this, I had never heard
What a phrogger was, never heard the term.
But looks like we had a phrogger going from house
To house, and the "phrog" ended up in our house.
[chuckles]
♪ ♪
- The window screen looks busted,
Like it had been tampered with.
Something was up.
- I find fruit lined up
Like an edible choo-choo train.
It quietly screamed,
"I was here."
- The room looked like it had been ransacked.
There was something under the bed.
- And I knew that silhouette,
And I'm being hunted like an animal,
And I would have to suffer for not wanting him.
[screaming]