It was a regular Tuesday night at the Ward household in Battle Creek, Michigan when single mom Sara decided to end the day and go to bed. She told her boys Skylar (14) and Reese (11) that she loved them and went upstairs.
While Skylar took a shower, Reese stayed in the living room watching Netflix. That was when their dog Kona started barking.
A stranger stood outside their door.
Taking caution, the 11-year-old grabbed the family’s samurai sword and placed it near the door.
“I went to open the door to say ‘Hello, who are you and what do you want?’” Reese said in a Fox News report. “He started trying to push through.”
Hearing their dog bark, Sara jumped out of bed to see what was happening.
She saw the man on the other side of the door; he was wearing a hoodie and a red bandana wrapped around his face.
As she was approaching the door, the man kicked at it and broke the lock.
“Your first instinct is to fight back and protect yourself, protect your family,” said Sara. “So I started pushing back against the door and screaming, 'Get out, get out.'”
Terrified, Reese and his mother used their body weight against the door to keep the intruder out.
According to the Fox report, the man managed to get an arm inside and pepper sprayed them both. But because it was an old can of pepper spray, it didn’t work.
Thankfully, fourteen-year-old Skyler stepped out of the shower to inspect the combination.
“I ran, grabbed the sword and ran at the guy as fast as I could with full intention of doing as much damage to him as possible,” said Skyler. “When I swung through the door, he got scared.”
Reese called the police after the man left. But because it was dark, they didn’t get a good look at him.
“We responded and the K-9 attempted a track in the area with negative results,” said Lt. Matthew Robinson with the Battle Creek Police Department. “At this point we’re looking for additional information for suspects.”
Sara believes that the incident was drug-related; their house had once been a known drug house.
But since moving into the property, everything has been quiet until this incident.
“It’s [my] worst nightmare,” said Sara.
“It’s the thing that you’re afraid of the most, especially as a single mother is that somebody could try to hurt you or hurt your children and what are you going to do to protect yourself if a grown man wants to hurt you.”
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