Intruder Victim Felt “Cold Hand Touch My Behind”

Calm but quick thinking may have saved a woman who felt the “cold hand” of a stranger touch her buttocks and waist in her own bed early Wednesday morning.

Alma Przybylko woke up just before 6 a.m. in her Chula Vista apartment as someone shuffled into her bedroom. Knowing her husband Jerzy has insomnia and was sleeping on the living room couch, she thought it may be him.

“I felt a cold hand touch my behind, and then I reached for the side of my husband, and I didn't find him,” Przybylko told NBC 7.

She thought she may be dreaming, so she drifted back to sleep until she felt someone sit on the edge of her bed. Przybylko turned and saw the silhouette of a man shaped very differently from her husband.

Hoping she was dreaming, she closed her eyes again. But a second look showed her the terrible truth: an intruder was in her home.

“So my heart was pounding really, really hard and I started shaking. I don't know what to do,” Przybylko said.

The man had apparently walked the Przybylkos’ unlocked front door, past her sleeping husband, who was wearing earplugs, and into the bedroom.

Wearing just a t-shirt and underwear, Przybylko pulled the comforter around herself, pretending she was asleep as the stranger sat on her bed.

"I don't know what happened to my husband. I don't know how long he has been here in the apartment, and I have to think, if I scream, what will be his reaction? He could be armed with a gun or knife,” she recounted.

She also realized her husband had earplugs, so he may not hear her cries for help. Instead of screaming, she stayed silent as the man lay down beside her and started to touch her waist.

As she tried to figure a way out, Przybylko said she decided to pretend the intruder was her husband, calmly calling him “baby.”

"And he was just about getting closer and grabbed me on my waistline, and I said, 'Oh, wait a minute, I need to go to the bathroom. I need to pee.' He didn't react then,” the victim said.

Przybylko took her chance to escape to the bathroom, where she locked her door and began planning her next move. There was no way out of the room.

After she heard the stranger walk by, she flushed the toilet to keep up the pretense and rushed straight to Jerzy on the living room couch.

Her husband woke up immediately, but the stranger had come out as well.

"I have to stay calm myself because I saw the guy in the corner of the kitchen hiding, so I know he was just right with us,” said Przybylko.

She whispered to Jerzy that someone was in the apartment, but he didn’t believe her. Wasting no time, she grabbed her husband’s shirt, picked up a phone and ran them both outside.

Przybylko ordered her husband to call 911, and when he saw his wife shaking, he realized it wasn’t a joke.

Jerzy told her he would stay there and wait for police while she went to a neighbor and asked for help.

But by the time officers arrived, the suspect had escaped. Chula Vista Police say the man walked off nonchalantly without drawing attention to himself. They believe he returned later wearing a different shirt, trying to get into another apartment unit.

As Przybylko reflected on the “creepy experience,” she looks back on it with a twinge of pride.

“I’m kind of like proud of myself. I did it,” she told NBC 7.

In that moment, she said she knew she truly loved her husband “because I was so worried about him because I didn’t know what happened to him.

For his part, Jerzy could not be more impressed with the woman who saved him.

“She is ass-kicker, big time. Really,” her husband said. “She outsmarted the pants off this guy by just maneuvering him practically out of his wits."

Police agreed that Przybylko’s ability to stay calm helped keep her safe. Przybylko would tell anyone in a similar situation to keep your reactions cool and collected.

But above all?

"No matter how sleepy you are, tired you are, always lock the door,” she said.

Investigators are still trying to find the prowling suspect. He is described as a thin man with a medium complexion, 30 to 35 years old, approximately 5-feet, 6-inches to 6-feet tall, wearing all dark clothes and possibly later wearing dark clothing with a red shirt.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the CVPD at 619-691-5151 or Crime Stoppers at 888-580-5477.

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