It’s safe to say 99-year-old Doris Rucker Wasden had a tumultuous weekend. Her otherwise peaceful life of retirement was swapped for weapons, threats and hostages.
But Doris, despite her age, took it all in her stride. She wasn’t even phased when an armed man broke into her home.
“I just had this house cleaned for my party and you are messing it up. You better knock it off,” she said to the robber.
And, believe it or not, Doris was actually able to save the whole situation.
It was late on Saturday night when an armed man broke into Doris Wasden’s house in West Valley, USA – a home she shares with her granddaughter.
Doris had gone to bed, and so did not hear the robber in the first instance.
But Doris’ granddaughter, CJ Montoya, and her granddaughter’s husband, Jim Gabbard, were woken by the disturbance and went to investigate the noise.
It was Gabbard who met the man, eye to eye, and the stranger reacted by aiming a gun at his face.
– “He said, ‘give me your car keys, or I’m going to kill you,” Gabbard told KSL.
Police called to the house
By that point, police – already tracking the man, who had been involved in a shooting earlier that evening – had arrived on scene and were gathered outside the house. However, with people trapped inside the home, they dared not enter lest the man begin to fire.
Somewhat fortunately, both Gabbard and Montoya were able to escape from the armed man and get out of the house via the back door, where the police received them.
This left 99-year-old Doris and the assailant alone inside the house together.
The man found Doris in her bed and dragged her out, leaving her on the floor. Fortunately, Doris wasn’t hurt, and so managed to crawl back to her bed.
Spoken with sharpness
When the man returned to the bedroom, having started to search the house, he began to talk to Doris with harsh words. Due to her age, Doris couldn’t understand what he was saying:
“He tried to talk with me. But I said ‘I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you’. Then he understood that I was a very old woman, so he was quite nice to me after that,” Doris told Fox 13.
The robber began to sift through Doris’ things, looking for valuables, so she gave him some choice words of her own.
– “He was rifling through the drawers, making a mess, spilling things all over and she has her 100th birthday party one week from today,” Gabbard said. “And her words to him were, ‘I just had this house cleaned for my party and you are messing it up. You better knock it off.'”
Her firm words appear to have had a resounding effect, for the man never hurt Doris. Instead, he realised the error of his ways, eventually going on to release her to the police, but not until after the pair had spent two hours together in Doris’ bedroom talking.
Somehow, Doris was able to convince the man that the best course of action was to let her go. At 3am, Doris left the house, and the man was later arrested by police officers.
“My brother said I saved the man’s life,” says Doris.
No injuries
No one was injured during the hostage situation, nor the shooting that had occurred earlier on the same night. The assailant was later identified as an 18-year-old who had escaped from custody.
Neither Doris or her granddaughter say that they are angry with the man who broke into their home. They merely hope that he is able to turn his life around and get back on his feet.
You can watch the extraordinary interview with Doris below:
[arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/3m3n7T4KlIc” /]
What a hero Doris is to stay so calm in such a terrible situation, and go on to talk the young robber out of doing something more sinister.
Please share this story, so that Doris can be recognised as she should be!
