Crystal Carbajal was getting ready for another day of school at Manatee School for the Arts when she heard a knock on the door.
On Friday around 7:50 a.m., the 16-year-old said she was the only one home, she looked through the peep hole and saw something suspicious.
“I noticed he was kind of nervous and walking back and forth so I didn't open it,” Carbajal said she ran to her mom’s room to get a better look out the window. That is when she saw the man was gone and so was the car parked in her driveway. Relieved, she started to get ready for school. Then she heard a sound that let he know someone was in the garage.
“Whenever you open the side door to the garage the whole house shakes,” Carbajal said.
Carbajal said she ran to grab her phone and heard them getting in through the kitchen door.
“I ran and hid in my mom’s closet,” Carbajal said. “I heard noise everywhere especially in my moms room going through the drawers going through the bathrooms, they actually went inside the closet I was in.”
On the phone with 911 she whispered her address to the operator and waited for help to arrive.
“When the cops got here all they said was who peeked, as in who snitched, who called the cops,” Carbajal said.
Boxed in by the Manatee deputies responding the suspects, identified as a juvenile 17-year-old and Michael Nelson, 28 fled the scene. They drove through the front yard and ditched the car more than a mile down the road at Shadow Brooke Mobile Home Park.
A Good Samaritan who saw deputies chasing Nelson through his backyard grabbed a gun. Then investigators said Nelson entered the Good Samaritans home. The homeowner identified as Jonathan Friedman held Nelson at gunpoint until deputies arrived.
The juvenile suspect was taken into custody a few houses down.
During the booking process deputies said Nelson attempted to light himself on fire.
The men are charged with burglary, obstruction, fleeing police, and criminal mischief.
