TROY, Mich. (WXYZ) — Imagine being woken from your sleep in the middle of the night to find someone aggressively trying to get into your home any way they can. Well, it happened to a Troy grandmother.
Millicent Holland has lived on Gatesford in Troy for 50 years and never experienced anything like this.
It was 1:30 a.m. when her dog Pepper sounded the alarm.
“The dog was barking and I know when she barks like that there’s someone at the door,” Holland said.
Police say the suspect was a highly intoxicated 26-year-old woman. Holland says a woman she had never seen before was pounding on the front door and shaking the door knob and demanding to be let inside.
“No! You can’t come in,” Holland told the woman through the door, then ran to wake her son who was spending the night.
Meanwhile, the woman ran around the back of the house and opened the sliding glass door.
“We were both standing in the hallway and and I said 'Oh, she’s gone!' Then ‘oh my gosh! she’s in the house," Holland recalled. “Oh my gosh she’s coming she’s coming!"
Holland called 911, and her son grabbed a gun and pointed it at the woman until police came, which thankfully was very quickly.
The woman continued to be aggressive even once police arrived, fighting and spitting, according to police.
“It was terrifying, and it only lasted 5 to 10 minutes,” Holland said.
She says there’s an important lesson in this.
"I said to my son, did you learn anything," Holland said. "He says, 'from now on mom every door gets locked!'"
Troy police say home invasions are rare and most happen in the middle of the day when no one is home.
In this case, police say the woman was very intoxicated and there may have been other substances involved. She told police she thought she was entering her own house. She lives in the neighborhood, but not near Holland. Holland had never seen her before.
The suspect faces two charges in connection with unlawful entry and obstructing police. She will be arraigned in May.
