Alternative Facts! Misinformation, obfuscation, equivocation! FAKE. NEWS. Liars and the lies they tell are a plague, but every now and then it’s nice to see stories where falsehood is actually a good thing. 88-year-old Helen Reynolds says she stopped a burglar from raping her by claiming she had HIV.
“I said to him, ‘It’s like this,’” she told WPVI in a Friday report. “’I said you might as well know the truth.’ I said, ‘I have HIV, and my husband died from it.’ Which was a lie. When I said that, he just walked out of the bedroom.”
Reynolds alleges the man had posed as an apartment complex worker, and broke into her home in Parkesburg, Pennsylvania. She says he wrapped her in duct tape, and had her in his mercy until she managed to scare him away.
“I have nothing good to say about him,” she said. “Nothing at all. Put him in jail, and leave the sucker there.”
This case remains under investigation. In a nearby incident that recently happened, a 17-year-old allegedly burglarized the home of a 72-year-old woman, assaulted her, tied her up, and left her in a closet for four days.
“Bless her heart,” Reynolds said. “I know I thought of her ever since I heard about her.” Police told the outlet the incident involving her and the 72-year-old appear unrelated. Nonetheless, they’re investigating whether the teen, who has been arrested, was also responsible for other recent burglaries.
[Screengrab via WPVI]