FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, Ind. – A 17-year-old girl in Franklin Township is safe after a scary brush with a burglar at her family’s home on Knapp Road Wednesday.
Faith Shilkett was home alone around 2 p.m., when her dog Duke started barking. She walked out of her room and saw a man knocking on the front door.
“He was big. He was muscular. He looked like he could do damage if he got a hold of you,” said the teen. “I was scared if he got in, he could’ve hurt me.”
Faith then took off through the house to lock the other doors. When she did that, she got a glimpse of the man at a deck door. She says the man then went to the garage door and jiggled the handle, trying to get in, and even peered in the window. Faith then ran to her mom’s room and pulled out a gun.
“I stayed back here and I started yelling ‘I’m here. I have a gun. I’m going to shoot,’” she said.
Faith called for help and waited. She said she heard rustling in the garage and the man took off in a white van.
“Your child is your life. I couldn’t even think straight,” said Faith’s mother, Amy Shilkett, who had just left for the store. “All I was thinking is ‘how quickly can I get here?’”
Amy raced home, where she found metro police had already arrived.
The family says the man got away with a generator, a power washer, and other tools from the garage.
“Items can be replaced, but obviously your daughter can’t be. That was my biggest worry,” said Amy.
Amy is thankful that the man didn’t make it inside. She’s reminding other families to make sure all doors are locked on their home at all times. In this case, the garage door was open and perhaps a target for the suspected thief.
“Everybody be a little bit more cautious and do the best they can to keep their kids safe,” said Amy.
Faith says the man was roughly six feet tall, white, and had brown hair. According to a police report, IMPD were not immediately able to locate him or the getaway vehicle.
