PITTSBURGH — A woman says she woke to the sound of her locked front door being forced open, then discovered a stranger coming up the stairs of her Greenfield home claiming to be a state police officer.
Madalyn Durmis said she and her roommate were following their normal routine and had gone to bed early Tuesday night.
“Around like midnight, we hear this loud thud, like this loud crash,” Durmis said. “And when I get out of my bed, I go to see what it is and there’s a man coming up my steps.”
Pittsburgh police said officers were called to the 900 block of Greenfield Avenue around 12:15 a.m. Wednesday for a burglary in progress.
According to police, two women were on the second floor when they heard a loud noise near the front door.
When they left their rooms, they found a man on the stairwell landing.
Durmis said she had never seen the man before.
She described him as thin, about 5 feet, 8 inches tall, with short brown hair.
She said he was wearing a black tank top and black jeans.
Durmis said the man did not stop to look around or initially try to take anything.
Instead, he made an unsettling claim.
“I yelled, ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ And he said, ‘State Police, you’re under arrest,’” Durmis recalled.
She said the man continued moving toward her, prompting her instincts to take over.
“I gave him a shove, and in my hallway was a broken shower curtain rod that I grabbed,” Durmis said. “I chased him, and I hit him with it as he ran out the door.”
As the man was leaving, Durmis said he grabbed her keys from a coffee table near the front door and ran away.
Police said the man fled toward Murray Avenue.
The front doorway was damaged during the break-in, and a set of vehicle keys was reported stolen.
Durmis said she followed the man outside but tripped and fell near the sidewalk as he continued running.
“It is really frightening because you think of your home as like a safe place, and now my door was lying on the ground,” she said.
Durmis and her roommate are now changing their locks, replacing her car’s key fob and adding security cameras around the home.
She described her reaction during the confrontation as “fight or flight.”
“I said, ‘Not this house, man. You chose the wrong people,’” Durmis recalled.
Pittsburgh Police are continuing to investigate, and police are still searching for the man.
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