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OGDEN — A veteran dispatcher is crediting the 13-year-old girl who called 911 with the capture of two suspects who broke into the girl’s home this week.
Debbie Thacker, the dispatcher who has served in her post for 30 years, said she’s talked with scared children before.
“I started to ask her some questions about what was going on, and then she almost immediately quit talking to me,” Thacker said. “All you could hear is her breathing and me typing.”
It quickly became apparent that Kylee Newell, 13, and her 8-year-old sister, Audrey, were hiding from someone. An intruder had entered through the back door, Kylee and Audrey sought refuge in a closet and tried to keep quiet.
“I just tried to reassure her that we had help on the way,” Thacker said. “I could tell that she had something really going on there where she really felt like she was in danger.”
Thacker said she was typing with another dispatcher, getting a deputy to the house and finding other ways to communicate. She reverted to a tapping method: once for yes and twice for no.
“So I really don’t know where that came from,” Thacker said. “I’ve done it before, but I couldn’t give you an instance,” adding that this call was especially unusual and tough because of who was on the other side. Thacker said it’s hard not to feel for those young girls and their family.
“I’m sure those parents were devastated to find out that this went on in their home while they weren’t there, and it would be a terrifying thing,” Thacker said.
She said Kylee was brave.
“(The parents) have got to be proud of those little girls,” Thacker said. “They were just so … they just were perfect.”
“Every day I ask God that I’ll be able to have the ability to meet whatever lands in my lap,” Thacker said.
The suspects, Robert Paul and Amy Hulse, face burglary charges.
