BOTHELL – For seven hours, she was locked inside a utility closet, not knowing if the masked robbers would go through with a threat to kill her loved one.
“I had a lot of time to think. Your whole life goes through your mind. I was just worried about my (relative),” the woman said.
The woman was robbed at gunpoint in her Bothell-area house just after noon on Friday, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday.
The violent home-invasion robbery appeared to be planned, and the woman, who is in her late 60s, was specifically targeted, said sheriff’s spokesman Rich Niebusch.
A stranger came to a secured gate leading to the woman’s home and asked to come up. She told the woman she was a neighbor and wanted to look at the woman’s exotic birds.
The woman has an extensive aviary and other exotic animals on her 18-acre property. Visitors often come to see the collection, which includes kangaroos and a few emu, she said.
The woman has asked The Herald to withhold her name to protect her identity.
The suspect made up a story about wanting to purchase a bird. When she was told there weren’t any for sale, she asked to use the restroom. She was allowed inside, and then left.
A short time later, she returned to say she had left behind her driver’s license and asked to look around for it.
The suspect came to the house again. She asked the woman to take her phone number in case she found her license.
A burly man wearing a bandana over his face and armed with a semiautomatic handgun then burst through the door, yelling that he was robbing the place.
“All I could see was his eyes and nose,” the woman said. “I thought it was a joke. I thought it was a big fat joke.”
The woman tried to talk to the man, but he yelled an expletive at her and threatened to shoot her.
“I told him I didn’t like that word,” the woman said.
The man grabbed her by the back of the neck and pushed the woman, who weighs just 98 pounds, down the hall. He put a gun to the side of her head and demanded she take money from a safe.
He told her that he was holding a relative hostage, and if he didn’t get more money, the woman’s loved one would be killed.
“I begged him to leave her alone. I didn’t want (her children) to be motherless,” she said, not wanting to reveal the identity of the relative.
The man forced the woman out to her car in the garage and took her purse. He locked her inside a utility closet in the garage.
The closet wasn’t big enough for the woman to turn around or sit. She stood on the damp cement for hours, pounding on the door.
“I didn’t know when I was going to get out. I didn’t have a coat, and I was cold,” said the woman, who has pneumonia.
About seven hours later, she heard a vehicle pull up. A maintenance worker heard her cries for help and got her out of the closet. They called police and her relative, who had not been held hostage.
Investigators believe the suspects knew the woman had a safe. Detectives discovered that the suspects had disabled an alarm and cut the phone line before the robbery.
“They had an intended target, and knew it was going to be worth the investment because money was available,” Niebusch said.
The robbery has left the woman fearful. She says she’ll never open her gate for a stranger again.
“It’s too bad. I’ve just met so many wonderful people” who have visited her menagerie, she said.
Sheriff’s detectives are asking for the public’s help in finding the suspects.
“I just hope they can catch them before they do anything more serious,” the woman said.
Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.
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