92-Year-Old Blind Woman Wards Off West Tulsa Burglars

Thieves are targeting people who live in west Tulsa; some are storm victims who are losing what the recent tornado didn't take.

At least five neighbors and a church have been hit. Now, some of the victims are so frustrated they're ready to take matters into their own hands.

Twylia Smock is 92 years old and has six decades of good memories in her west Tulsa home.

Even though she's legally blind, she wasn't going to let burglars come in and ruin things.

"All of a sudden, someone is kicking and beating on my back door, trying to get in," Smock said.

She had just locked the back door and put a board up when she heard the thieves trying to break into her home.

That's when she went for her pistol.

"I got up close to the door and said, 'Come on in, boys! The police won't take you away, the morgue will. I'll take care of you,'” Smock told them.

Within seconds they ran off, but Smock was still angry over what they had done.

“If I could get a hold of the ones who got my friends up there, I'd take them out," she said.

Several of her neighbors are either burglary victims themselves or know someone in the neighborhood who has been hit by thieves.

Darla Bushell's son was in intensive care the day his home was broken into.

"They had broke the upstairs window, and went in through the window and cleaned him out. They got his laptops, tools," Bushell said.

She thinks the thieves saw her son being taken away in an ambulance and saw an opportunity.

"It is sickening,” Bushell said. “He hasn't been able to work since November because he's ill and they took everything he had."

Even Pastor Danny Carter's church was targeted.

"The air conditioner was pushed out into the apartment, so there would be a hole there. A small person could get through or reach over and unlock the door," he said.

The storm had already taken out one window and the thieves got away with a microphone, an amp and other electronics.

Neighbors like Smock are ready for it to stop.

"Someone has got to take them out, I hope it's not me, but I will," she said.

Smock is planning to buy a shotgun for more protection. In fact she went shopping for one Thursday.

All of the burglaries have happened in just the past week.

Police are working to catch the burglars, but for now, neighbors are warned to be on the lookout and to immediately report anything suspicious.