How Wordle Saved 80-Year-Old Chicago Woman Held Captive In Her House For 17 Hours
Denyse Holt was sleeping in her house when a naked man broke into the house through a window and held her hostage in her own house
New Delhi: Denyse Holt, 80, is a Wordle enthusiast, like millions of others across the world now. It’s her morning ritual to play the guessing word game and share the scores with her daughter.
But Holt didn’t do it on February 5, and that troubled her daughter who soon found out why, only to be shocked beyond belief.
On 5 February, Holt was sleeping in her Morse Avenue home in Lincolnwood, Chicago, where she lives alone, when a man broke into the house through a window, according to reports.
The man, aged 32, was reportedly naked and was carrying a pair of scissors.
He allegedly got into bed with her and started giving instructions, Independent.co.uk quoted Holt as saying.
“I was shocked,” she said. “[He] just threatened me.”
Holt was held captive in her own house.
Locked Up In Basement Bathroom
It turned out that the man, identified as James H Davis III, had got a cut from broken glass while breaking into the house and was leaving behind a trail of dripping blood.
“He said ‘I won’t harm you or molest you’,” Holt was quoted as saying.
She said the man asked her to get into the shower with him as he was not warm, and then dragged her around the house as he disconnected all phone lines.
Holt said she was still in her soaking wet nightgown as Davis dragged her around.
He then allegedly locked her up in a bathroom in the basement of the house.
No Wordle
Meanwhile, Holt’s daughter Meredith Holt-Caldwell, who lives in Seattle, was getting worried as she had not yet shared the day’s Wordle, a departure from her daily routine, and was not responding to other messages.
“I didn’t send my older daughter a Wordle in the morning. And that was disconcerting to her,” Holt told Independent.co.uk .
Quoting the daughter, the report said the family noticed that Holt was reading the messages but was not responding. The police were then alerted and officers responding to the wellbeing check found the intruder.
The police finally freed Holt after 17 hours of captivity, and took Davis into custody, the report said.
He faces charges of felony, home invasion with a weapon, aggravated kidnapping, and aggravated assault against a peace officer, the report said, adding that Davis was found to have mental health issues.
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