'Lock your doors!': Man creepily watches woman sleep after breaking in her home in Iowa
ANKENY, IOWA: Dan Abimana, a 23-year-old man, was recently charged with two counts of trespassing on allegations of entering the unlocked apartment of a woman in Ankeny, Iowa, at around 3:30 am on April 1. A surveillance footage of the incident showed Abimana entering the woman’s home and creepily staring at her sleep before fleeing the scene half an hour later with a pair of socks.
The video reportedly showed the man inside the house, watching the woman sleep, rearranging her shoes, putting on socks, and touching her knees as she lay on the couch covered in a blanket. The man was also seen leaving the apartment after stealing a pair of socks, right after the woman woke up when he touched her knee. Abimana also wrote a note, used the washroom, and drank a glass of water from the woman’s kitchen sink, the Daily Mail noted. He eventually turned himself in after the woman’s daughter-in-law circulated the footage on social media, the Ankeny Police Department told the publication.
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‘Lock your doors!’
The woman, who did not want to be identified, told the Law and Crime Network that the experience was traumatizing for her, her family, and even her pet dog. She said she asked Abimana who he was multiple times after waking up, to which he mysteriously replied, “I’m the guy who dropped you off last night.” “At that point, I knew he wasn't a friend of the kids or anything. My assumption was that he was on drugs or something. I didn't smell alcohol on him when he was standing right in front of me and I was awake,” the woman told the outlet.
She then screamed for her son, but the man swiftly left right before her son arrived. The woman also confirmed that Abimana left a note with five or six lines jotted on a piece of paper. “Part of it said, ‘While you are sleeping’ and then it just went into jumbled letters together. You couldn't even sound out anything it was just random letters. Five or six lines in one paragraph and then one line at the bottom,” she shared.
The woman also revealed that Abimana got into her house because she mistakenly left the door open. She even advised others to lock their doors when they sleep. “Lock your doors! I can't say that loud enough or enough times. I am really really grateful that nothing happened to the kids that were in the apartment,” she said. The woman mentioned she was also disappointed that Abimana is only facing a trespassing charge. “I was very upset, I was not happy at all. I felt at the least it should have been either burglary or assault. I was in fear for my life when I woke up,” she told the publication.
‘I have trouble sleeping’
Brittany Andrews, the unnamed woman’s daughter-in-law, addressed the break-in incident in an interview with Inside Edition. She shared that her mother-in-law wanted to stay the night, so the latter was sleeping on the couch. Speaking about Abimana’s behavior, Andrews said, “He drank out of a cup that was on the counter that was someone else's drink. He kind of mingled around our kitchen quite a bit. He got on my mother-in-law's phone quite a few times, got in his pocket. Set it down.”
She shared, “It appeared he was taking photos of her while she was sleeping at one some point. He put on a pair of socks, clean laundry, that was waiting to be put away.” Andrews’ mother-in-law added that she was having trouble sleeping after the incident, “I have trouble sleeping. I constantly wake up in the night and look around to see if anyone's in my room. If I go around the corner coming in, I look to see if anybody's there. I mean it's really affected me. I want to see some justice.”
‘It could have ended a lot worse’
Officials said that they believe Abimana did not have any “bad intentions.” However, they feel the incident could have taken a worse turn. “I don't think that gentlemen had any really bad intentions but it could have ended a lot worse. He's lucky someone didn't find him and shoot him,” Sergeant Corey Schneden, a spokesperson for Ankeny Police Department, told the Daily Mail. “It was a simple misdemeanor we charged him with. The video in this case might have helped him because it just showed him doing strange things. Alcohol was definitely a factor, to what level I don't know,” he added.