Family traumatised after home invasion

THREE words uttered by her four-year-old son after a gang of gun-wielding men stormed into their Glenwood home last week summed up the traumatised family’s ordeal. “Jesus saved us.”

Still in shock and battling to deal with the trauma of their experience, the Glenwood family have asked not to be named. Their nightmare began on Wednesday night when the family was enjoying a quiet evening at home. “My fiance and I were downstairs and our four-year-old was up at the main house with my in-laws. We had just had supper and were watching TV. We only realised something was wrong when two men stormed in and pulled a gun on us,” said the 24-year-old pregnant monther.

The men told the couple to keep quiet and instructed them to go to the main house where the woman’s in laws, father and 13-year-old brother lived. One of the men urged the woman up the stairs towards the main house with a gun nudging at her spine. “They said, “Shut up or I’ll shoot you!” despite us doing what they told us tobecause we did not want to get hurt,” she said.

The traumatised woman said around the same time, her young brother was walking to get something to drink and screamed when he spotted the men through a window, but it was too late.

“Once we got up into my in laws house we saw everyone face down on the living room floor and we were pushed down too. I was down but not the way they wanted me to be, so one of the men kicked me in the back,” she said recounting the events.

The woman said two men stood watching over them with hand guns while the other three ransacked the house. The men also made the family take out all jewellery and handbags containing wallets, IDs, cash and cards, before rummaging through the house upstairs and downstairs. Three plasma TVs, her son’s playstation set and all his games, cellphones and all of her fiance’s clothes were taken.

As they ransacked the house the men constantly told them not to look at their faces and asked them “Where is the safe?” “We did not have a safe and told them so, then they asked for the laptops. Honestly they robbed the poorest people on the street, we don’t have fancy expensive electronics. The whole time I was laying there, I was just thinking don’t hurt my child and don’t rape me, but I knew they were all armed so they could have done anything. It was awful – the longest 20 minutes of my life,” she added.

While searching downstairs, the men found a set of car keys and asked whether the vehicle had a tracking device. The woman’s fiance said it was a work vehicle and he didn’t think so. They locked the family in the home and left in the car. “They acted like they were still around walking up and down so we didn’t try go for help. We didn’t know they were gone until we heard the car alarm as they left. Then we hit the panic alarm.” It was after this that the woman’s son looked up at her and said: “Jesus saved us.”

The woman said the children probably realised the severity of the situation because they listened and were very quiet. “We are still in shock, I’m too terrified to sleep in my home and haven’t yet. It’s awful, your home is supposed to be your safe haven.”

Although relieved that her family is alive and relatively well, (her father in law had to go for stitches after being hit with the butt of a gun) she is livid that people could violate her privacy and the safety of her family in such a horrific way.

“We work so hard to afford the things we have and yet those people feel they can just come and take our stuff and terrify us in our own home. We didn’t know whether we were going to live or die and even after the ordeal, we don’t feel safe. We are lucky to get away with our lives, but having your life and those of your loved ones threatened is the worst feeling,” she said.

The vehicle was tracked to Chesterville within an hour after the incident, although the interior had been ripped out as the men searched for a tracking device.