Woman, 87, Fed Her Home Invader

An elderly woman not only fought off an intruder who broke into her Maine home—she made sure he was well-fed before he went on his way. The Times Record reports that 87-year-old Marjorie Perkins of Brunswick was fast asleep last Wednesday when she woke up to find a young man standing over her bed. "He said, 'I'm going to cut you,'" says Perkins, who adds that she thought to herself: "If he's going to cut, I'm going to kick." She tells News Center Maine that she "jumped out of bed [and] got my shoes on real fast," and that the teen then lunged for her, pushing her against a wall.

"So I took my chair and started hitting him," Perkins says, noting she was mostly able to fend him off, save for a punch that landed on her forehead. Finally, Perkins says, her attacker wearied of the fight and headed into her kitchen, telling her he hadn't eaten in some time. Perkins pulled out some honey crackers and peanut butter, as well as a couple of tangerines and two containers of Ensure, and as the intruder chowed down, she dialed 911 "as fast as I could," she tells the Times Record—on her rotary phone.

The suspect fled before cops arrived, but a police dog managed to track him down a few blocks from Perkins' home, police say. They charged him with burglary, criminal threatening, assault, and consuming liquor as a minor (he'd had a water bottle with booze in it, Perkins notes), though his identity and age weren't revealed. Perkins, however, says he's 17—and she knows that because the teen had mowed her lawn for extra cash about 10 years ago.

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"He did a darn good job," she says. "I hope he gets help." Perkins, who notes that she'd locked her door before retiring for the night, says the intruder broke in to her home by removing the side panel on an air conditioner and squeezing in through the hole; News Center Maine has video showing the AC wall unit and how big the gap was. Perkins has since had the unit screwed tightly into place and is now urging others to do the same. A neighbor also gifted Perkins with a baseball bat, in case of future incidents. (More Maine stories.)