An 87-year-old woman fought off a teenage attacker then fed him snacks from her kitchen to distract him before she called police last week, according to reports. On July 26, Marjorie Perkins awoke at 2 a.m. to a person standing over her bed. The intruder had shed his shirt and pants and threatened to cut her. “I woke up to see a male standing over me by my bed, telling me he was going to cut me,” Perkins told News Center Maine. The Maine woman was determined she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Perkins, who lives alone, jumped out of bed and put her shoes on, thinking, “if’s he’s going to cut, then I’m going to kick.”
She grabbed a nearby chair to defend herself as the teenage intruder attempted to beat her.
“He kept punching me and pushing me,” Perkins told the Times Record.
The attack continued until “he got tired of that,” and walked into the kitchen where he mentioned he was “very hungry.”
“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.”
Perkins wasn’t just feeding the intruder out of the kindness of her heart.
“That was to keep him busy, what do you think? I taught school (for) 35 years,” she told CNN.
While the teen was distracted by the snacks, the former teacher quickly dialed 911 on her rotary phone. Unfortunately, he left while she was still on the phone with the dispatcher, but a K9 was able to track him down a few blocks away where he had been staying.
The teen, whose identity has not been released due to his age, was arrested and charged with burglary, criminal threatening, assault and consuming liquor as a minor.
While the public may not know the teen’s identity, Perkins is familiar with the intruder. She says he used to mow her lawn several years ago.