ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35 ORLANDO) -
An Orange County woman and her daughter are afraid to unlock their door and leave their home after a frightening ordeal early Tuesday morning.
"I'm frozen, still in shock. I can't believe this happened. All I see rewinding again and again, these guns in my face," said the victim who lives on Partlow Drive. "I just kept thinking about her and hoping they wouldn't shoot me because they kept putting the gun to me," she said and asked us not to print her name because she is still shaken.
She told us how three armed men and a woman forced their way into her home. Around 12:45 Tuesday morning, she heard a knock on her front door. Thinking it was a friend who had left moments earlier, the victim told me she cracked her front door open. It was a woman she didn't recognize, asking for help.
"She said, 'Oh, I need some jumper cables.' I'm like what?'" said the victim.
She said that's when three masked men, armed with guns, forced the door open. "They just came in and put guns to my face. They tied me face down on the floor with zip ties, pretty tight."
She said one man stood above her with a gun while the other two ransacked the house. "They just kept putting the gun to my face asking for money."
She was praying the intruders wouldn't wake her 14-year-old daughter. "I was scared. I thought they were going to come into my room. I couldn't do anything," the daughter told us.
The horrifying ordeal lasted less than 10 minutes, but to this mom and daughter, it seemed like an eternity. "I heard them leave, and she called for me," said the daughter of her mother. "I locked the door, untied her and ran to the neighbor's house."
The gunmen got away with their rent money which was due this week, a purse and cell phone, and the daughter's 3-month-old puppy, Bruno. It's a little black and white puppy they bought to protect them. "My dog is gone," said the daughter.
The victim said that the gunmen kept asking for her boyfriend. She said there is no man who lives in her house.
If you know anything about this early morning home invasion on Partlow Drive, call Crimeline at 1-800-423-TIPS (8477).
