E-Paper
Maine woman, 87, fought off invader who came to ‘cut her’ – then fed him peanut butter and honey crackers
“I woke up to see a male standing over me by my bed, telling me he was going to cut me,” Marjorie Perkins said
An elderly retired teacher in Maine fought off a home invader, and then fed him snacks in her kitchen. 87-year-old Marjorie Perkins later called police, local reports claim.
Marjorie was asleep in her bedroom at her Brunswick house when a man entered her home last week. She woke up at around 2 am to find a person looming above her.
“I woke up to see a male standing over me by my bed, telling me he was going to cut me,” Marjorie told News Center Maine. She jumped out of her bed and put on her shoes, trying to decide how she would defend herself. “I thought to myself, ‘If he’s going to cut, I’m going to kick.’ So I jumped into my shoes,” Marjorie, who lives alone, told the Times Record.
The home invader, who was a teen, allegedly pushed her against a wall and started hitting her. Marjorie struck him back. She grabbed a chair to use it as a shield, and kept screaming for help. “He kept punching me and pushing me,” Marjorie said.
The teen then stopped fighting and walked into Marjorie’s kitchen, although she asked him to leave the house immediately. “He said he was awfully hungry and hadn’t had anything to eat for quite a while,” Marjorie said. “And I said, ‘Well, here’s a box of peanut butter and honey crackers. You can have that whole box.’ I gave him two containers of Ensure and I gave him two tangerines.”
‘Don’t sit and cry about it’
The intruder ate at Marjorie’s kitchen, while she dialled 911 on her rotary phone “as fast as [she] could.” Although the teen left before police arrived, a police dog tracked him down to where he was living. The teen was charged with burglary, criminal threatening, assault and consuming liquor as a minor. He allegedly had a water bottle full of alcohol when he broke into Marjorie’s home. He is now being held at the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland.
Marjorie later revealed that she knew the intruder as he mowed her lawn as a boy. She believes he is about 17-year-old now. He did a darn good job,” she said. “I hope he gets help.”
Marjorie, who was a former elementary school teacher and line dancing instructor, believes the boy entered her home by pushing aside a screen next to her window-unit AC. He eventually climbed through the open space. Of her terrifying ordeal, she said, “Don’t sit and cry about it… Be ready to kick and pick up a chair and hit somebody with it.”
