A James Bay couple are taking extra care to keep their doors locked after a woman forced her way into their home, took a bath and a shower and refused to leave.
Police eventually arrested the naked woman in an upstairs suite after the unusual break and enter.
Richard, who asked that his last name not be used due to fear of retribution, said he was gardening in his James Bay home on Friday when a woman forced her way through the home’s electronic driveway gate and began rambling about the American military to his wife on the front porch.
“She was saying: ‘Get out of my house, you can’t be in my house, the U.S. army and navy are coming to take you away,’ ” said Richard, a former social worker who has lived in the James Bay home with his wife for 43 years.
“This person was in really bad shape,” said Richard, adding the woman was tall, had dirty blond hair and looked to be in her 40s.
“They were not in the real world at all.
“Her face was very sunken — cheeks were sunken in. Her eyes, they were almost going in circles.”
Realizing that they were dealing with someone who might be mentally unwell, Richard and his wife quickly locked themselves in their house after entering through a side door.
But they had left unlocked their home’s upper suite, which his wife had been cleaning moments before for an upcoming family visit.
Realizing that the upper area was unlocked, the woman went upstairs and locked herself in.
Richard dialed 911. “The police were really good. They got here really fast,” he said.
The woman, who had been out on the house’s upper-floor deck, fled inside once she realized police had arrived.
“We could hear her walking around, rummaging [through] things,” Richard said.
Officers were still familiarizing themselves with the layout of the house and trying to determine whether the woman was armed when she reappeared in front of a bedroom window completely naked, he said.
The woman had taken off her jeans and her shirt and was yelling at people on the street, he said.
“A couple of people in the neighbourhood walked by while it was going on and they were, of course, really disturbed,” he said.
A police negotiator began talking to the woman from the street while taking cover behind a parked vehicle, Richard said.
Eventually, the negotiator was able to distract the woman long enough for officers to rush into the house and arrest her, he said.
The woman didn’t appear to resist arrest, Richard said.
In a statement, Victoria police spokesperson Griffen Hohl said one person was taken into custody and transported to hospital for a break and enter on Friday afternoon.
An officer with the department’s Co-Response team, where police are partnered with a mental-health professional to respond to incidents involving individuals in mental distress, was deployed to the James Bay incident, he said.
It took about 30 minutes for the arrest to take place, said Hohl, adding a criminal charge isn’t being pursued, given that the apprehension was made under the Mental Health Act.
Richard said he was thankful for the police, who approached the situation calmly.
“They stayed out of her face, right? They weren’t aggressive towards her,” he said. “I give them a lot of credit for that.”
Richard said there was very little damage to his house. A few doors’ hinges will have to be replaced, but it appears that the woman was more interested in taking care of personal hygiene than destroying the place, he said.
“We have lots of things up there for the grandkids, a big-screen TV and all that kind of stuff,” he said. “Nothing was thrown or smashed.”
Both the bath and the shower were used while she was locked inside the suite, he said.
In all, Richard estimated that the damages to the house will cost about $1,500 to repair, mostly due to door replacement.
Richard said three of the eight police officers who attended the scene said they did not recognize the woman.
“Within the Victoria Police Department, they pretty much know the reoccurring offenders,” he said.
“But this particular person they hadn’t seen before.”
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