DeLeon Springs woman wakes up to find intruder standing in dark bedroom

$60K in savings bonds among items stolen from home


DELEON SPRINGS, Fla. – Deputies with the Volusia County Sheriff's Office are looking for a man in DeLeon Springs who entered an elderly woman's home while she slept Monday morning. 

"She's pretty (shaken) up right now," said Scott Black, the woman's grandson. "Well (that is) to be (expected) -- waking up to something like that at her age. It's very terrifying."

Black, who lives next door to his grandmother, said he was at work when he got a frantic call from his wife around 2 a.m., telling him his 87-year-old grandmother's home had been broken into.

"Apparently, they had been in the house quite some time," Black said. "I don't know how long, but long enough to go through every room in the house."

Deputies said the man got inside the home by prying open the front door, and he was standing in the woman's room in the dark when she woke up.

"When she woke up, they were just there standing over her," Black said. "She said they turned around, ran out of the house (and) hit a wall."

That's when Black's wife alerted neighbors about what had happened, Black said.

"Everybody is calling all our neighbors, trying to find out if everybody was OK," said Rosa Gonzales, adding that she couldn't sleep the rest of the night, knowing the man was still at large.

Now she'll be taking extra precautions, she said.

"(Such as) making sure I lock everything up before I go to sleep," Gonzales said. "I usually put (on) the alarm, but I'm gonna double check everything."

Black says the man stole nearly $60,000 in saving bonds, among other items.

Deputies said they have surveillance video of a man in the neighborhood on the same night, but they aren't saying yet if the man on camera is the man suspected in this burglary.