A Vestal Street couple discovered an intruder in the basement of their home around 3 a.m. Saturday morning and are crediting a fast response by the Nantucket Police Department for resolving the situation safely.
Sarah Noelle McLane and her husband Jerry awoke after hearing noises below their second-floor bedroom. McLane said after searching the first floor, her husband went into their finished basement wielding an antique walking stick and discovered a man staring at a blank television.
While McLane called police, her husband told the intruder not to move. When the man started to come at him, he struck the intruder with the walking stick and police arrived moments later to take the man into custody.
McLane said she wanted to share the story to make people aware that these types of incidents happen on the island, and the responding officers told her they occur far more often than people would think.
“We were lucky, and lucky that the police arrived as quick as they did,” McLane said. “It was honestly 10 minutes start to finish. It was unbelievably well handled by them.”
McLane shared the photo from the incident above on social media – the blood is from the intruder after he was struck by her husband – with the caption “Bad things happen even in nice places; and more often than we are led to believe.”
She believes the intruder was “strung out” on some type of drug, and that it was not a case of someone being inebriated and entering the wrong home by accident.
The Nantucket Police Department did not return messages over the weekend seeking comment about the incident.
