LINCOLNWOOD, Ill. — An 80-year-old woman’s family is crediting the word game “Wordle” with saving her from a man who broke into her Lincolnwood, Illinois, home and held her hostage.
Denyse Holt woke up in the middle of the night on Saturday to find a naked man, armed with scissors, getting into bed with her, who said to her, “If you talk, if you yell or you scream, I’m going to cut you,” The Washington Post reported. The man allegedly got in by breaking a window, WBBM reported.
Holt told WBBM the man ordered her to shower with him, and he then dragged her around the house disconnecting phones.
Eventually, he took her to a basement bathroom and barricaded it with a chair. She was there for 17 hours with no windows, in darkness, WBBM reported. Holt had no medication, was in pain, and while she had access to water, she had no food, The Washington Post reported.
Meanwhile, Holt’s daughter, who lives in Seattle, Washington, noticed that her mother was not reading her texts, and had not given her any updates on “Wordle,” a daily game the two have been playing together, WBBM reported. “I didn’t send my older daughter a Wordle in the morning. And that was disconcerting to her,” Holt told WBBM.
When Holt’s daughters began to suspect something was wrong, they sent a neighbor to the house, who reported that nobody answered the door but her car was at the house, The Washington Post reported. Her daughters called the Lincolnwood police for help.
Police went to the house and were in an hours-long standoff with the suspect, before using a stun gun through a hole in the door to subdue him, WBBM reported. Police said the suspect is in custody and is believed to have mental issues.
Police told The Washington Post the intruder, identified as James H. Davis III, has been charged with four felonies: home invasion with a dangerous weapon, aggravated kidnapping while armed with a dangerous weapon and two counts of aggravated assault against a peace officer.
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