Written by Jessica Ardrey
At approximately 2 a.m. Sunday, Ben Cormier sat in his dorm room like on any other night. One roommate was asleep, the other two out of town. Then he heard a noise at the window.
When he entered the next room, he did not expect to come face to face with the man who had just broken into his apartment.
The man tore the screens off two other windows in the ground-level apartment in Cone dorm before he came across one that had been left unlocked. He then removed that screen and forced his way into the living room.
“I walk out, and I see these two feet sticking out from behind a chair,” said Cormier.
Cormier asked the man what he was doing there, and the man claimed to be staying with a friend named Steven. When Cormier told the man that there was no Steven who lived there, the man got up, walked up to Cormier and stood inches away from his face.
“We didn’t break eye contact the entire time,” Cormier said. “I didn’t want to take my eyes off this guy; I wanted to make sure he’s not going to pull a knife on me.”
After a few seconds, which Cormier said felt like forever, the man decided not to cause any more trouble. Cormier told him to leave.
“Ben is either really nuts or really brave,” Cormier’s suitemate Greg Lyons said.
The man did so without stealing anything, but left not through the open window, but past Cormier, out the room and out a side door of the dorm. The dorm’s alarm, however, did not sound when the man left.
“Somebody tampered with it,” Residence Life Coordinator Linda Cox said. “But the system was repaired Monday morning.”
After the man left, Cormier contacted Public Safety. They then encountered the man they thought to be the trespasser still on campus.However, because they did not actually witness the man committing a crime, they had to let him go.
According to sources, the intruder was “older” and was not a student.
“He was a pretty big dude, gnarly-looking, with tattoos all over his arms and one on his neck,” Cormier said.
The Searcy Police Department, whom Public Safety contacted, showed up at the apartment. Cormier later went to the police station to give his testimony and answer questions.
“I’m just hoping that with someone getting a good look at him, there might be a way of finding out who this individual is,” Cox said.
So far, there does not seem to be any connection between this incident and the string of break-ins in Cone last year.The only similarity is the aspect of entering through the window.
It seemed the matter of unlocked windows would be less of an issue after last year’s episode.According to Cox, however, forgetfulness seems to be the trend.
“We’ve done what we can with the doors; they automatically lock,” Cox said. “These guys have a responsibility to make sure those windows are locked. It’s just a habit they need to get into.”
Flyers were also posted on the doors of dorms all over campus to encourage students everywhere to lock their windows and take extra precautions against predators.
