Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
OREM -- A young woman being robbed in Orem Wednesday morning decided to try getting help by sending out a text message.
The woman and her two roommates were asleep inside their house, near 500 North and 200 East, when two men entered with a gun around 5:30 a.m.
Orem police Sgt. Craig Martinez says the men woke up the roommate sleeping in the downstairs bedroom and showed her the gun. They then told her to stay put and that they were going to take some of her stuff.
From there, the men went to an upstairs bedroom where they found and woke up a second roommate. They told her basically the same thing they had told the first woman.
"They told her stay in the room, don't call the cops," Martinez said. "They milled around the house looking at stuff and eventually took a TV and an Xbox."
Police think the men might have been inside the house anywhere from a half hour to an hour before leaving. At some point -- police aren't sure if the robbers were still in the house or not -- one of the women sent a text message to her father saying they had been robbed and to call the police.
The father did call police, but the men had taken off in a car before officers arrived.
"The last home invasion we had in Orem was possibly four or five months ago," Martinez said. "We haven't had anything recently at all."
Martinez says police don't have a good description of the suspects, but they think the men could have gotten into the house through an unlocked door. Provo police say it's common for doors to be found unlocked when there are roommates in a home.
A third roommate was inside the house sleeping and never knew anything was happening. Police say a fourth roommate also lives there but was out of town.
-----
Story compiled with contributions from Randall Jeppesen and Jed Boal.
---
