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DENVER (KMGH) — A Denver woman is telling her story to Denver 7 after a terrifying home invasion.
The masked gunman walked through an open door then tied the woman and her husband up. He spent the next three hours, tormenting the couple, and threatening to kill them.
The criminal is still on the run.
Janet Schmidt said she’s lucky to be alive after the encounter with the man inside her Wash Park home.
“At one point he threatened to rape me, but he didn’t. At one point he threatened to shoot [my husband] in the face and kill him,” she told Demver7’s Tom Mustin.
Tuesday morning, Schmidt and her husband woke up to find a man with a gun standing in their kitchen.
“A mask, hoodie jacket that said ‘Native Roots.’ Just kind of a black guy with light skin. He said ‘Yeah, you guys have lots of money in this neighborhood,’” said Schmidt.
The couple had locked their back gate but left their back door unlocked. The man told them to be quiet or he’d kill them.
“Then he locked us in the closet and went around doing stuff. Then he brought me out, and he made me try on my fanciest underwear — bizarre,” she said.
She tried to talk to the man. He told her he’d spent time in a homeless shelter, then became angry.
“At one point, he grabbed me really hard, and I got the idea he could be very violent,” she said.
He tied Schmidt up again with her husband in the closet, then spent the next several hours ransacking the home and stealing anything of value.
“My car, my TV, laptop and my phone and my checkbooks and credit cards and all the cash he could find,” she said.
For hours, he reminded the couple if they left the closet he’d shoot them. The couple managed to get untied, then cautiously left the closet when the house grew quiet.
Schmidt said she won’t sleep until the criminal is caught.
“Does it make you think twice about living here?” asked Mustin.
“Yes it does,” she said. “I could probably sell this house for a lot of money. I’m seriously considering it.”
And after a morning of terror inside her home, Schmidt said she has learned a valuable lesson.
“Lock all your doors and bolt them. Don’t be so cavalier. I thought this was a safe place,” she said.
Schmidt said she and her husband have lived in their home for 30 years and never had had any problems.
Right now, Denver Police have no suspects in custody.
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