A Chicago woman was rescued from a home invader after her daughter called the police – alarmed that she didn’t get her daily Wordle from her mother.
The 17-hour hostage situation broke out in the middle of the night in the city’s Lincolnwood neighborhood last Saturday.
Denyse Holt was asleep when a naked man made his way into her house by breaking the window.
The intruder, who was armed with scissors and was bloodied after cutting himself on the broken glass, climbed into the 80-year-old woman’s bed.
Holt told CBS that the man promised he wouldn’t hurt or sexually assault her. But she knew she couldn’t trust him. “I didn’t think I was going to live. I was in shock. I was trying to survive,” she said.
The home invader then led her into the shower with him, but soon said: “No, I’m not warm enough. We have to take a bath.”
When they got out of the bathtub, the hostage taker dragged the woman around the house in her soaked nightgown, disconnecting the phones and taking two knives in the kitchen.
He ended up locking Holt inside the basement bathroom and barricading the door with a chair. The woman spent hours there in complete darkness, pacing and stretching to try to keep warm.
Meanwhile, in Seattle, her eldest daughter, Meredith Holt-Caldwell, became worried because her mother had not replied to her text messages for a long time.
When she didn’t receive her daily Wordle from her mom, which is a tradition in the family, Holt-Caldwell decided to ring up the Chicago police.
The call saved her mother’s life.
The police arrived and, after a lengthy standoff, managed to detain the intruder. The officers were eventually able to shoot a stun gun through a hole in the door to subdue the man.
The suspect, who was identified as James H. Davis III, 32, is now facing charges of home invasion with a dangerous weapon, aggravated kidnapping, and aggravated assault against a police officer, among other things. A mental health evaluation has been ordered for him.
Holt was examined and found to be physically unharmed. “I’m very lucky,” she said.
Wordle is a web-based word game which came out last year and has millions of players. The aim is to guess one five-letter word in six attempts. Players can share the results with each other on social media.
In early February, the New York Times announced that it purchased the Wordle app from its creator, Josh Wardle, for an undisclosed seven-digit amount.