How Wordle helped save Seattle woman’s mother from home invader

An 80-year-old Chicago resident named Denyse Holt has made a daily habit of sending her Wordle score to her daughter Meredith, who lives across the country in Seattle. When Denyse missed a day earlier this week, Meredith suspected something might be wrong.

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After the day went by without Denyse having texted her daughter her score from the popular word puzzle, subsequent texts and calls went unanswered. Eventually, Meredith placed a call to the Chicago Police Department, asking that they send officers over to check on her mother.

When Chicago police found Denyse, they discovered that she had been held hostage by an intruder for over 20 hours. The intruder — a 32-year-old man who was believed to be suffering from a mental health crisis — had taken Denyse’s phone and locked her in the basement of her home.

Police were able to enter the home and get Denyse out of the house, before finding the intruder upstairs armed with a knife. Officers then subdued the intruder with a Taser and arrested him. The intruder has since been charged with home invasion with a dangerous weapon, aggravated kidnapping, and two counts of aggravated assault against a peace officer.

Meredith expressed relief that police were able to help, urging people to take the incident as a message to “reach out to your loved ones when they’re far away.”

“Don’t be lackadaisical,” she told the Chicago Tribune. “You can do something from 3,500 miles away. You can save lives and make a difference. Have a plan in place. If there’s weird behavior that doesn’t match, do some investigating.”