A Flower Mound mother fought to get a violent intruder out of her home and away from her family, but the masked man is still on the loose.
It happened just before 2:30 a.m. Tuesday in the 2400 block of Conroe Court.
The man was wearing a white plastic mask and a hood, and entered the home through an unlocked door, according to Flower Mound police.
The family said they returned that night from a baseball game, and the mother, who does not want to be identified, was still awake. She went to check the sprinkler system and noticed the back door open.
"From the edge of the kitchen I could see the back door was wide open," she said. "I thought maybe I had left it open or hadn't shut it very well or the wind had blown it open. It never dawned on me anybody would be in the house."
"It took me a second to process that it wasn't my husband or my son, and I screamed, "Hey!" And when he turned around I realized it was a very tall figure in a black hoodie," the woman said.
Her husband and son were sleeping a bedroom nearby.
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"He made a move. I don't know where he was going, but he was between me, my husband and my son, so I ran straight across the kitchen, hit at a full run and just fought and struggled to get him out the back door."
She said the intruder had picked up a rum bottle off the counter and used it to fight back, but she was able to force him outside.
"I felt good. I had got him out, shut it and locked it," she said. "He started banging on the door and immediately three strong hits and he was right back through the door."
He shattered the glass and the struggle continued. The struggle was enough to wake up her husband and son who were sleeping nearby.
"I came out of the bedroom, and she and the intruder are standing right there and still screaming," her husband said. "I don't understand what's going on, so I reached over and flipped the light on and said, 'What's going on?' And at that point he realized somebody else was in the house and ran toward the front door."
"I took off right after him, and I was hitting on him the entire way to the front door," the woman said.
The family said they want others to be aware and keep all doors and gates locked at all times.
"It's awful. It's hard to go to sleep at night," said the woman's husband. "We sat up, she was afraid he was going to come back because he was so determined to get back in, so we sat on the couch with baseball bats on our laps while I Shop-Vac'd the broken glass up."
Flower Mound police are still investigating and said they have collected samples from blood left behind by the intruder at the scene.
He was described as a white man, approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall to 6 feet tall, with a slender build and light-colored hair, and wearing a white plastic mask, black hoodie with no markings and dark colored pants. He may have several glass cuts on his hands, face or arms.
If you have information, call the Flower Mound Police Department's anonymous tip line at 972-874-3307 or the nonemergency line at 972-539-0525.