Two little girls awoke Sunday morning to find a strange man in their bedrooms, according to San Diego County Sheriff’s officials.
Around 5:15 a.m., the sheriff’s department received a call from an apartment complex in the 500 block of Rush Drive in San Marcos. Officials say a 7-year-old girl woke up and noticed a man kneeling by her bed. The man reportedly escaped through a sliding glass door in the living room.
“To just go in and stand there, that’s pretty brazen,” said Jan Caldwell with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.
About 25 minutes later, deputies received a similar call from the same complex. This time, a mother and 8-year-old girl sleeping in the same room woke up and discovered a man lying next to the girl’s bed.
“She goes, ‘there’s someone down there,’” the mother told NBC 7, describing the moment her daughter noticed the intruder.
The woman, who did not want to be identified, she screamed and chased the man through her living room. He jumped from the second-story balcony and escaped.
“I was freaked out. I was just really freaked out,” she said.
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The woman told NBC 7 that she thinks the man used a rain spout to climb up to the balcony. She said she accidentally left the sliding door unlocked.
“I’ll never leave the door unlocked again,” she said.
Authorities are now searching for the suspect. He is described as a man between 5-foot-7 and 5-foot-9 with dark skin and scruffy facial hair. He was wearing a beanie hat, a white t-shirt and dark pants.
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department is investigating.
“We don’t make assumptions in law enforcement, but it could be an assumption that he went in there and he knew there was a child in each of these homes,” Caldwell said.
A neighbor told NBC 7 that a lot of single-parent families live in the complex.
On Sunday, Terra Cotta Apartments sent a letter to residents. It reminded them to lock their windows and doors, but did not give any details about the incidents.
Anyone with information can call the sheriff’s department at 858-565-5200 or Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.
