Locksmith Saves Woman's Life After Reading '911' Note on Her Hand
There are many reasons to get your door locks changed or rekeyed, but most of them boil down to safety. Recently purchased a home with a history? Had a break-in? Concerned someone might have a key and unexpectedly show up?
All excellent reasons for calling a locksmith — and that’s precisely what one woman from Midway, Utah, did, according to KSTU-TV in Salt Lake City.
The unidentified woman set up an appointment to get the locks rekeyed as she had an ex in possession of a key and she didn’t want him making an unannounced appearance.
But he did. On Oct. 1, he allegedly got into her house, took the woman’s phone, assaulted her and then threatened to harm himself and burn the house down.
The next day was the woman’s previously scheduled appointment with the locksmith. When he showed up, he immediately sensed that something was “off.”
“There was a gentleman that was kind of hovering over her, you know, wouldn’t get really more than a foot away from her,” the locksmith, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Greg, told KSTU.
He thought the behavior was odd, and it unsettled him, but then the woman made a move that made it clear in no uncertain terms that she needed help.
“She’s sitting there talking to me about what types of payment I take and everything, and she’s kind of turning, she’s at a little bit of a different angle and she’s holding up her hand kind of like this with her palm open, and she has ‘911’ written on her hand,” Greg said.
“So obviously that, you know, drew some attention from me. But I was wearing a mask, so, you know, I couldn’t mouth anything to her or anything.”
He saw that the woman also had to ask the man for her phone to pay him using Venmo, which Greg referred to as “another little red flag.”
Because of the mask, he said, he couldn’t signal that he got the message, but he tried to make direct eye contact to confirm he saw her plea for help.
“She’s showing me the ‘911’ again, kind of making sure that I saw it,” he said. “And I made eye contact with her, to basically let her know that yeah, I saw it.”
After leaving, Greg called a friend who works for the FBI, and the friend told him to call the police right away.
“I would have been second-guessing myself if I didn’t do anything,” he said.
NEW from @DNewsCrimeTeam: A Midway woman escaped a domestic violence situation over the weekend after writing “911” on her hand and quietly showing it to a repairman. https://t.co/C1XQ2GDhn0
— Deseret News (@DeseretNews) October 6, 2020
The ex, identified as Grant Nielsen Eggertsen, was arrested and charged with kidnapping, interruption of communication device and assault. According to KSTU, he has since bailed out of jail.
“When found out that he had been arrested and charged and stuff, um, I was kind of like, ‘Okay, good. Good. You know. That’s good,'” Greg said. “I’m glad that the lady is safe and that nothing bad happened.”
Greg commended the woman for her intelligence and ability to think on her feet.
“The lady was pretty smart, you know, to be able to do what she did,” he said. “And so, you know, it’s not like I was trying to guess what was really going on … she gave me some great clues that there was an issue there.”
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