TAMARAC, FLA. (WSVN) - Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies have taken a woman into custody after she was caught on camera walking into a Tamarac family’s home and smashing several items with a hammer.
Shawnee Smellie’s family said they locked an exterior door but accidentally left it open, which allowed the woman to walk into their home.
“I’m just upset how the damage she leave to the house,” Smellie said. “She broke the glasses, both glasses.”
Broken glass scatters the floor, there’s holes in the wall and they continue drying the living room, which flooded after, they said, the woman ruined their fish tank.
“It’s sad for a young, disturbed, confused young girl to do something like that,” Smellie said.
Smellie and her son, 21-year-old Paul Pryce, were home and heard the doorbell when the stranger walked in.
Pryce, who said he did not recognize her voice, did not expect to find her swinging a hammer in the hallway.
“I hear someone, like, yelling,” Pryce said. “Then, I heard a crash. Then, I was quite alarmed. She came closer to me with the hammer — like, like crazy talk.”
“I’m saying, ‘Do I know you? I don’t think we know you. You’re in the wrong house,'” Smellie said.
The mysterious woman also paid Smellie’s neighbors a visit. They shared video of the woman plopping down on the hood of their silver BMW and banging an object on its hood.
Pryce, meanwhile, was determined not to let the woman get away.
“My son took control. Oh, my God,” Smellie said. “He decided he was not going to let her leave until I called 911.”
Surveillance video showed the woman walking outside of the home with Pryce following behind. He kept her outside of the home until authorities arrived.
“She went outside, so I went out with her so she doesn’t try anything crazy because I didn’t want her in the house with my mom,” Pryce said.
“When the police came, they took over, and she was cussing them out, and she was going off,” Smellie said. “Right there, you could tell that she’s really not herself.”
Although deputies took her into custody, the family said they have not been able to identify her yet.
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