Lehigh Acres mother watches man attempt break-in on surveillance footage

Heart-pounding moment for a Lehigh Acres mother after being alerted on her phone of suspicious activity in front of her house.

“You’re trying to look at it and you’re kind of in shock,” said the victim, who wants to remain anonymous for security reasons.

“It’s scary,” the victim said. “You don’t know if that person is carrying a weapon. You don’t know what their intentions are, what they’re trying to do.”

She watched as a man came within inches from her front door. She heard him jiggle a lock on the side of her home, right next to her bedroom window.

The victim watched as the intruder came closer and closer to her home, as her sleeping children, a newborn baby and two little girls were inside.

“The first instinct as a mom is run, make sure the kids are safe,” the victim said.

After watching the man walk on her front porch in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, the mother locked her doors and windows then called 911.

“By the time they [Lee County Sheriff’s Office] get here, there was no track of the guy,” the victim said.

Christmas morning, she noticed one of her holiday decorations were stolen. But, this is not the first time a burglary has happened in this Lehigh neighborhood on Joel Boulevard and 8th Street.

“It was Thanksgiving night last year that we got robbed,” said neighbor Troy Nelson. “So the holidays, and that it doesn’t surprise me anymore.”

Now, neighbors are staying vigilant and protecting themselves.

“We’re going to speed up getting security measures up and going through with my kids, like make sure you don’t answer the door if you don’t know who it is,” Nelson said.

The mother got the security alert from a security monitoring system called Arlo.

WINK News reached out to LCSO for an update on the suspect and has not heard back.