Note: For only this Family Tree “twig,” real names of anyone not family have been changed to protect their privacy whether they deserve it or not. I had a lot of memories surface about this event which is why it has been updated to include more detail.
1985: We were living on Nebo Road, a few houses down from Mother and Daddy. Danny and I had separated, and I was working at Atlanta’s Piedmont Hospital.
Then, something strange started happening at night. I often thought that I heard something outside my bedroom window (which was actually a second story window because of the full daylight basement), but turning off the lights and walking around the house checking out every window, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Everything seemed okay.
One night, POSITIVE someone was outside our home, I felt angry and sick and tired of being afraid. I raised the window, pointed my gun at a tree I could see fairly well from a neighbor’s street lamp, and pulled the trigger. At the same time, I yelled that whoever was there should leave us alone. I was so done with this nightly phantom visitor, I wanted to make it clear to whoever was out there, that I was not having it.
After hearing the gunshot and well aware of what I had been going through, Mother and Daddy were at my door within minutes. I told them what had happened, and while they believed me, they just couldn’t imagine why anybody would be doing that. That was at about 10pm on a work night for all three of us.
Everything seemed to be normal over the next few weeks. Then, things started again with the return of sounds like someone scraping metal on the bricks outside my bedroom.
There was even an added mystery: I found a shotgun shell lying on my dining room table. It scared me to death! I was terrified that someone was letting me know they could come and go in my house. It was about a week later that I learned Uncle Harold had come over to do some work for me, found the shotgun shell on the carport, and put it on the table when he went in the house. I was very relieved but still concerned because SOMEBODY had put that at my door!
One morning, I was, as usual, rushing around getting ready for work when I heard a knock at the kitchen’s half French door. Seeing a stranger, I wouldn’t open the door but asked through the glass, “What do you want?”
He said, “I’m looking for my cat. Have you seen it?”
I answered that I had not. He then asked me to let him know if I did.
I said, “Sure.” and that was that. End of conversation. I had to to work!!!
I thought nothing more about it except how stupid it was for him to think I could let him know I found his cat when I had no idea who he was.
It was a normal day at work. The kids and I had a normal evening. Bedtime as usual that night.
At 4:30am, I woke up hearing noises again outside. Something was scraping metal against the bricks of the house. I walked into the kitchen leaving all the lights off in the house (as Mother had always taught me to do). I pulled the kitchen sink curtain back slightly to look out to the backyard and nearly fainted.
There was a man standing with his back to me within inches of the window. I easily could have tapped his shoulder. I pointed my pistol at his head with every intention of pulling the trigger if he put one hand on the window. I was terrified, but there was no doubt in my mind that I would have tried to kill him.
My children were asleep, and it was up to me to protect them. But God was looking out for that boy at that moment! Instead of turning toward the window, he walked toward the backyard. I was absolutely beyond terrified!
I dropped to the floor and crawled a couple of feet to be able to jerk the cord of the wall mounted phone receiver and called the Sheriff’s Department. Then, afraid the man outside would see me and shoot (weird things go through your mind during such times), I stayed low and crawled to the bedroom where both my children were asleep, and locked the door as quietly as possible so as not to wake them.
After a few minutes, I heard a fast car coming our way. I went to the window and was relieved to see the law car. They didn’t come with their sirens blasting because of the early hour plus they didn’t want to cause an emergency for me. I saw the deputies pull into the neighbor’s driveway, but immediately, the car backed out and came to my house.
I stayed inside the locked bedroom with the still sleeping kids while the officers ran around the house outside. I could hear the thud of their footsteps and jangling keys(?).
Finally, a deputy came to the front door. I walked outside and started leading them to the backyard where I had heard the noise. He told me they had checked everything and there was nobody there.
I said, “Well, when I first saw him, I saw he had a ladder against the house which is what woke me up scraping against the bricks…” *
As soon as I said the word ladder, the deputy pointed his flashlight to a tree in the backyard where a ladder was propped up against it.
It wasn’t mine.
Then he started from the bottom and slowly went to the tree top with his flashlight. I’ll never forget the chill that went up my spine and the horror of seeing a man in the tree creepily illuminated but clearly exposed as the intruder on my property.
I took off running for the house as I heard the Sheriff yell, “Boy, get your ass down here NOW!!!”
When the trespasser had been handcuffed and put in the Sheriff’s car, they came back to the front door and asked if I wanted to see if I knew who he was. I went to the car and peered at this person looking back at me in the light of the open car door.
I said truthfully (I thought), “I’ve never seen him before.”
The deputy told me I would need to come to the sheriff’s office in the morning to file a complaint but that he was going to jail that night. I said I absolutely wanted to file charges!
About an hour later, one of the deputies came back to my house. He said he just wanted to check to make sure I was okay. Then, he told me how pretty I was. I am not an artful femme fatale and never have been. I don’t think I said anything and he flirted a little bit more before he got up and left.
It was many months after that that I realized
At the Sheriff’s Office, they asked me if I wanted to confront him, and I said, “Yes!” I walked in, to see him handcuffed to the chair.
I was more angry than scared at that point but still a little traumatized by the whole thing. I don’t remember much of what was said, but I do remember him saying he thought he’d been caught the day before when he had come to my door asking me if I had seen the cat.
I did remember the day before when I was getting ready to leave for work, in a hurry, and I didn’t even open the door when I answered his knock with, “What do you want?”
He said, “I’m looking for my cat. If you see him let me know.”
I said, “Okay!” and went back to finish getting ready to leave for work. I had the fleeting thought, “How in the world am I going to let him know when I don’t even know who he is or where he lives???” But I had to go and didn’t give him another thought.
Facing him at the Sheriff’s Department, it was scary to hear he’d been a peeping-tom at my bedroom for no telling how long.
I didn’t know that, when I asked him if he had come to my door the day before, he’d told the deputy He said it was him and the reason he did it was he thought I had seen him up the tree, and he thought if he asked me about his “lost cat,” it would explain why he was there.
Following up later with the Sheriff’s Department, I learned that they had let him go without charging him with anything. In exchange, they took him to the bus station where he had a ticket to go to some place in Texas where he had relatives.
He was gone exactly one week before he was back. I think he knew better than to come around my home again because I had let him know in front of the sheriff that I would kill him if he did.
* I think that night might have been different and God was looking out for us, too. The fact that he had the ladder against the house indicates to me that maybe he was going to do something more than climb the tree in the backyard. I can’t know that but, as I said, I feel very blessed that he was caught THAT day
