Armed burglars terrorize retired Snohomish couple

Carolyn and Jim Dent, 75 and 77, respectively, have lived in their Snohomish neighborhood for 44 years, and have always felt very safe there.

“We’ve lived here for 44 years and we never used to lock our house,” she told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. “We left the keys in the car. But it’s gotten to be that you just can’t do that anymore.”

That feeling of security changed on Friday morning at about 11 a.m. Carolyn was upstairs in their bedroom, getting changed to go meet a friend for lunch. That’s when she looked up and saw a masked man standing in her doorway.

The man, whom she described as about 6 feet tall, clean-cut, and in his 20s, told her he was a federal agent with a search warrant for her house. Carolyn did not believe this for a moment, noting wryly to Dori, “I was a schoolteacher for 25 years.”

Shouting at the man to leave, Carolyn ripped the mask off of the housebreaker’s face and hurried downstairs to find her husband.

“I don’t know how I could have gotten so brazen, but I did — I guess I’m not your average 75-year-old,” she said with a laugh.

On the ground floor, Carolyn found her husband, and also a second burglar who had come through an unlocked door with the first man. When Jim shoved the second man, the two burglars took out guns, hit him with the pistol, and tied him up, demanding to know where he and Carolyn kept their valuables.

In the meantime, Carolyn slipped into another room to get her cell phone and call police.

“I think the Lord was keeping me focused … it was frightening, but I still remained relatively calm,” she said.

While one of the burglars went upstairs to steal from the bedroom, the other found Carolyn and took the cell phone from her to prevent her making the call. However, the burglars then left her alone again.

“They thought I was old and they didn’t have to worry about me,” she said.

Carolyn went into the family room to get the landline, and successfully called 911. Taking the chance to escape, Carolyn ran outside in her bathrobe to flag down drivers and get help.

The burglars fled after Carolyn called 911, but did manage to get away with the Dents’ truck.

Carolyn praised the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office deputies who spent five hours at the Dents’ home.

However, worse than the loss of the truck is the feeling of unease that Carolyn and Jim now have in their longtime Snohomish neighborhood.

“I am very conscious of any movement outside right now and my doors are locked,” she said. “So it makes you uneasy.”

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