Man breaks into 78-year-old woman's home, holds gun to her head, steals her jewelry and money



PARKLAND, Wash. -- Pierce County sheriff's detectives need your help to identify the suspect responsible for a home invasion robbery of an elderly woman.

The 78-year-old grandmother of 11 was asleep in her home on April 1 when the crook kicked in the door to her home on 112th Street East in Parkland.

"I was in bed asleep and I heard a big, huge crash, I thought a car had run into the front of the house," said the victim, who we are not identifying for her safety. "It was the most frightening thing I've ever had happen to me."

The intruder entered the her bedroom and put a gun to her head.

"He was screaming, 'Get to the ground!'" she said before the man jerked her out of bed. "He pushed my head down to the floor, to the ground and put the gun, assume it was the gun, to my head and kept saying, 'Don't look up. don't look up," she said.

The man placed a robe over the victim's head, then stole her jewelry, purse and a handgun and forced her to give him the pin code to her debit card.

The man wore a mask and gloves during the robbery.  Immediately afterward, the suspect uses the victim's stolen debit card at an ATM on Gravelly Lake Drive SW in Lakewood.

"You can see he's trying to disguise himself but somebody is gonna know who he is by his eyes and the rest of his face that's exposed," said Pierce County sheriff's detective Ed Troyer.

The stolen debit card was also used at 3:50 a.m. at a Chevron gas station on Bridgeport Way SW in Lakewood. He was driving a dark-colored BMW with a broken passenger side headlight.  The suspect appears to be a white male in his 20s or 30s, wearing a ski mask and a dark-colored jacket with a logo on the right chest area.

"So this is somebody that's taken advantage of somebody who's lived a great life and all of a sudden she has some dirt bag put a gun to her head, take her stuff and go to the cash machine to try to take some money," said Troyer.

The victim has made her doors and home much more secure but she doesn't get much sleep anymore.

"I sit or lay with the phone in one hand and the life alert button in the other ... listening for noises for fear they'll come back," she said."

Crime Stoppers of Tacoma-Pierce County is offering a cash reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to the suspect's arrest. If you can identify him, call the hot line at 1-800-222-TIPS. You never have to give your name.