SEARCY, Ark. — A family in Arkansas was shocked after discovering something unsettling inside their home — a stranger who had been living in their basement.
The Hoggatt family in Searcy, Arkansas, told KTHV that they had started to feel something was off inside their home.
“We noticed that chairs had been moved around in the house,” homeowner Dutch Hoggatt told the station. “We noticed that some of our food was missing.”
Hoggatt shared his concerns with family members, and they decided to search the house one Sunday while he was at church.
Hoggatt’s wife, Sharon, went down to the basement.
“She went further into the closet, and that’s when I saw her eyes get really big,” the Hoggatt’s son-in-law Mark Gregory, told the station. “And she starts to back out, and she says, ‘there’s someone in there. I see their leg or their jeans or something.’”
The intruder then stepped out and told the family he was homeless.
“I could tell he wasn’t really a threat, but I had him step outside, and then I sat him down, and I just talked to him for a little while, till the police came,” Gregory said.
Investigators said the man had entered the home sometime during the previous week and set up a makeshift bed in a storage closet under the stairs.
Despite the alarming situation, the Hoggatts told the station they are not angry with the man. Instead, they feel sympathy.
“We’re not angry at this man,” Hoggatt said. “I feel sorry for the man. I’m glad we figured out there was somebody living in the house, because this could have gone on for much longer than it did.”
“I don’t think he was trying to be a bad guy,” Gregory said. “There’s plenty of opportunities where he could have, you know, taken things. It seemed like he was just trying to get out of the elements, trying to survive.”
Local authorities took the 41-year-old man into custody.