News

83-Year-Old Woman Talks About Fighting Intruder With Cane


Posted on:

< < Back to

Eighty-three-year-old Rozella Brown says she got the best exercise she’s had in years when she fought off an intruder who broke into her house Monday afternoon.

It all happened when she saw someone crouched down on her kitchen floor. Brown grabbed her cane.

“I ran over there as fast as I could and I started pounding him, so I know I must’ve been hitting him because he was crawling a little faster, I ran over there, he got my billfold and then I hit him out the door,” Brown said.

Rozella says the suspect seemed like a teenager and was wearing a corduroy jacket.

Although she didn’t see his face during the incident, she did demand a name.

“He said his name was Austin. The Sheriff found an Austin later but it wasn’t him. This guy was skinny,” Brown said.

The intrusion happened just months after the Brown family dealt with a different type of intruder in that same kitchen. A car plowed through the wall at 83 miles-per-hour, missing her husband by a foot.

Their kitchen where the intruder entered is still under construction from the incident.

Since the break-in, several of Rozella’s children have come to check on her.

One of her sons even put dead-locks on the doors for safety.

Rozella is very clear-headed about the incident. She says she’s not rattled. In fact, she’s prepared if they come back.

“If they come back I might surprise them. Maybe I’ll have something hidden in my pocketbook. And if it explodes that’s their fault not mine,” Brown said.

Even though the intruder got away with 100 dollars, Rozella is in good spirits.

“I know I shouldn’t think like this, but when I think about it and I get to laughing… I sure had fun swinging that cane,” Brown said.

No one has officially been indentified as the intruder, but Rozella says that after the story went public, one man brought 200 dollars to a reporter to give to her.

The Athens County Sheriff's department is still investigating the incident.