Paulding County Sheriff's deputies are seeking a man who barged into the home of an 88-year-old woman, roughed her up and stole her purse, money and jewelry, Channel 2 Action News reported.
"I thought probably he was going to kill me... and I'm thankful he didn't," Mary Jackson told Channel 2. "I asked the Lord to take care of me through the night. So far he has, and I'm thankful for that and I trust Him."
The incident started about 4 p.m. Thursday when Jackson heard a knock on the front door of her home in rural western Paulding County, authorities said.
"I come to the door, and there wasn't anybody there," she said. "By the time I turned around, he was knocking at the back door. That should have told me something."
Jackson did not know the man. Speaking to her through a screen door, the man told her he was having car trouble and asked to use her telephone.
But as they were talking, the man suddenly forced his way inside, roughed up the woman and took her alert call button so she couldn't summon help. She sat on the floor helpless as the man rifled through her belongings.
"I looked right in his eyes and I saw meanness in there," Jackson said. But, she added, she also thought of the man, "He's lost."
Sheriff's deputies are looking for the man, but they have little information about his appearance.
"We'd just encourage people that when you go to the door, if you don't know who's there, don't open the door," said Deputy Ashley Henson, spokesman for the Paulding County Sheriff's Office. "Talk through the door with the door locked, and if you don't know the person, don't let them in. Especially if you're an elderly person, they can just push past you and enter the home."
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