MARION COUNTY, Ore. (KOIN) – Marion County Deputies are calling an 18-year-old woman “extremely brave” after she hid and then scared off 2 burglars inside her home Wednesday.
Jensen Clarke was alone at her home in a remote part of Salem, where cell service is almost nonexistent.
She was able to text her mom using Wi-Fi, who called 911 to report a man and woman inside the house on Riverdale Road South.
“Oh my god they are in her room. They’re in the room,” Clarke’s mother told the 911 dispatcher.
“The man was getting very aggressive. He was banging on the glass, ringing the doorbell six or seven times in a row,” Clarke told KOIN.
The girl said they forced open a garage door and were gathering items to steal.
Clarke hid underneath a blanket inside a closet and her mother told her to stay quite while deputies were on their way. Then she got the nightmare text – “They found me.”
The burglars had made their way to the closet and when they lifted the blanket the young woman screamed “Get out of my house,” and both suspects ran off.
“I was literally afraid for my life,” Clarke said.
It took deputies 13 minutes to get to the house, because it is located in the far west portion of the county. Deputies say even though the victim was scared, she remained calm enough to gather information, which led to an arrest.
“It just brought everything back to their faces being an inch from mine,” she said. “And me thinking I was about to lose my life.”
38-year-old Tiffany Wicke and 37-year-old Jestahn Jackson were arrested in their car on Skyline Road South. They are both charged with burglary.
Police say these two are well known in the Salem community for all the wrong reasons.