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Home Intruder Incident

1:00:29 recording · EN · 6 speakers

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Brief overview

Four callers describe home intruders, and police indifference often proved as frightening as the break-ins.

  1. Police dismissed months of escalating warning signsJulia's roommates called for months and were told it was dog slobber and that they were being dramatic, until he was inside her bedroom.
  2. Ground-floor sliding doors are the weak pointThe hollow aluminium handle on Julia's sliding glass door was jammed open, and Molly's intruder simply tried an unlocked back door that happened to open.
  3. The aftermath outlasts the intrusionKelly woke at 3:30 a.m. in a panic every night until she met her husband, while Molly's therapist reframed trauma as a response rather than an event.
Executive Summary AI
  • Dan Shepard and Michelle Padman open the Armchair Anonymous episode on the prompt "home intruder," warning listeners about screaming and calling it a cautionary tale.0:12
  • Julia, calling from Worcester, Ohio, describes her 2016 ground-floor apartment outside Baltimore, where from August a man left cigarette butts, women's underwear and semen on the patio door, unscrewed the porch light, and pressed his genitals against the glass, while police called the three roommates dramatic and said it was dog slobber; in March he broke through the sliding door and stood over he5:08
  • Kelly was eight in Whittier when a masked man with a pen light in his mouth went through her father's pockets at 3:30 a.m. on October 31st, 1980; her naked father chased him over a block wall, blew out his knee and came back covered in blood, the thieves took the TV, stereo and her mother's purse, and she woke at 3:30 a.m. in a panic for decades afterwards.16:58
  • Molly, in Victoria, British Columbia, turned from her puzzle at about 8 p.m. in February 2020 to find a man in her kitchen picking up a chef's knife; she got both children upstairs and called 911 while her husband Logan tackled him, their 110 pound guard dog hid shaking on a bed, and the man, Cody, was arrested, charged with breaking and entering and brandishing a weapon, and bailed out within a d30:14
  • Lynn's husband let a bloodied young woman into their Downers Grove house at 2:30 in the morning in 2008 to call her father; police surrounded the house, told Lynn her arms-covered-in-blood guest was on drugs and that her husband was not an officer, then a dispatcher insisted the next day there had been no activity at the address, and the family never learned her name.44:06
Key Quote
“So I jump out of bed, yell to Emily, call the cops, somebody's in the house.”
— Julia10:32
Key Quote
“And the guy was at the foot of her bed with a ski mask and a pen light in his mouth.”
— Kelly18:18
Key Quote
“And I turn around and there's a strange man standing in my kitchen.”
— Molly31:50