Woman fends off East Memphis home intruders with shotgun


MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Some would-be criminals picked the wrong home to try to break into and found an East Memphis woman was locked, loaded and ready.

As Whitney Lyne tried to wind down for bed on Thursday, some bad guys had other plans.

"As soon as that window burst, I'm running right at her and I am jamming that gun through the door at her," Lyne said.

It started with a single doorbell ring, which startled Lyne because she wasn't expecting anyone.

"This person starts ringing the doorbell more, banging on the door ... She was just banging on the door. You could tell the difference between a fist and a palm hitting it, ringing the doorbell."

She didn't know it at the time but it was a woman opening her storm door and twisting the knob on the locked wood front door on Warwick Street.

As Lyne stared through the curtains trying to catch a glimpse of the woman, she realized the lady wasn't by herself.

"As soon as I peeked back out I could see this big man sitting in a silver car its parked in my driveway," she said.

These bad guys seemed bold enough to park right behind Lyne's car as if they were invited over.

"Then I heard a boom and things went silent, and thought she had burst in through the wood door at front and it just got quiet."

The woman was trying to come in through the front door. At that point, Lyne's two dogs lost it.

And that's when she swallowed her fears and grabbed the shotgun her husband told her to use for protection.

Now charging for the side door, where the woman had broken the glass and ready to come in, Lyne and the shotgun stopped the woman dead in her tracks.

"She just nonchalantly just stopped and slowly put her hand up, just walked to her car," Lyne said. "The guy looked at her, put his hands in the air, backed up and just sped off and they were gone."

The crooks didn't get anything. Lyne agreed to talk with us because she wants people in her neighborhood to be on the lookout in case the man and woman try to pull this stunt anywhere else.
