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OGDEN -- Imagine two people come to the door. You know them, so you let them in. And then, they don't leave. It turns out, they're wanted men, and you're essentially a hostage in your own home for two weeks.
It's the story a disabled Ogden man is telling.
Robert Shipley is in a wheelchair. One of his hands doesn't work that well, and he admits he has a hard time speaking. When a man showed up at his door - somebody he knew when the man was a boy - he invited him in, along with his friend.
"I shared everything I had with them," Shipley said in an interview inside his Adams Avenue apartment.
It wasn't long, Shipley said, before he realized 21-year-old Preston Harper and 20-year-old Thomas Rudolph were taking advantage.
"The longer they stayed here, the worse it got," Shipley said.
Nearly two weeks had passed. Shipley said the two had eaten all his food and gone through his resources. He finally on Wednesday was able to sneak out and call police from Ogden City's code enforcement office.
"I didn't want to come back here again," Shipley said, referring to his apartment. "I didn't want to come back here because they were here, and I knew it was going to get ugly."
Sure enough, police said that wasn't the end of the story. Shipley still returned home to wait for police to arrive.
When officers knocked, Shipley told police he was being held against his will by Harper and Rudolph.
With no answer and a locked door, officers grabbed another key from the apartment manager. Young said one of the men was hiding behind the door, and kept locking it as soon as officers unlocked it.
"I'm sure he was doing everything he could," Young said. "This individual was a parole fugitive, a highly-wanted person, so I'm sure he was doing everything he could to avoid being apprehended."
Eventually, police got through and the two men were cuffed.
Harper was wanted on a drug warrant. He was booked into the Weber County Jail on suspicion of robbery and unlawful detention.
Rudolph was taken into custody on charges of interfering with an arrest and unlawful detention. Police said he was a parole fugitive.
Both Harper and Rudolph have been charged with felony elder abuse.
Police are using the story as a cautionary tale.
"You just hope that in a better circumstance maybe neighbors, other people in the area would see what's going on and maybe talk to the person and find out a little earlier," Young said.
Shipley also said he wants people to pay attention.
"I hope nobody else has to go through it," Shipley said.
