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Who would’ve thought that showing a house could be so dangerous?
A 59-year old Realtor from St. Petersburg found herself in a frightening situation when a house showing turned into a ransom situation in which she was handcuffed and zip-tied on the ground as the robber tried to extort her husband for money.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the agent was notified by the real estate website Zillow that a man named Robert Evans was interested in a small house that wasn't far from her own. She said she didn't see any red flags initially, but he told her that he had just been pre-approved for a $450,000 loan, and the house he was interested in was listed at $150,000.
She said she arrived around noon and foud the man’s car already there. He stepped out with “a small black nylon briefcase and was neatly dressed in long pants, a dress shirt, and a straw fedora,” the woman said. She gave him a tour of the house, then returned to the kitchen to get her pad and pen.
"I was just picking up the pen getting ready to interview him further and the next thing he says is, 'Sorry about this,' and pulls a gun out and puts it right in my face,” she said.
According to her account, the man pulled a pair of handcuffs from the briefcase, told her to sit on the floor, and cuffed her hands together. He took her phone and called her husband.
The man asked the woman's husband for a ransom of $50,000 by 5 p.m. that day. The man exchanged multiple phone calls with the husband, who said he thought the whole thing was a prank. "I thought it was a joke,'' he said. ''It sounded like my pool guy — we're having our pool recapped.”
Once the husband made it clear that there was no way he could get that much money by that time, the agent said the man left with her phone. She was able to escape the zip ties around her ankles and run across the street, where a man allowed her to use his phone.
This agent wasn’t the only Realtor targeted by the robber. Assistant Police Chief Jim Previtera said that a similar incident had been reported.
Previtera said that in the second incident, “After the robber held the victim at gunpoint, he saw another Realtor and client arrive, then very coolly and calmly left the house as if all was fine. In a 911 call, the victim said her keys and phone were taken, and that the man demanded money.”
Read more at the Tampa Bay Times.
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