True story, by the way. This happened to me earlier tonight.
Mid-size city, 500K people. Suburbia area. Well lit. Good part of town. Next to parks, schools, etc. Nice weather.
9:30 tonight (Sunday), I was in the house putting away some laundry. I heard the doorbell. I didn’t think anything of it, because I have been getting lots of amazon deliveries.
30 seconds or so later, a knock on the door. Wow, delivery guy is def letting me know I guess.
So I finish folding my laundry, go to front porch. Probably 5 to 10 minutes since knock on door. No package. Weird.
I check my porch camera and it shows a teen girl, maybe 15 or so, out of breath ringing the doorbell. She’s wearing pajama bottom pants, shoes, hoodie and a backpack. And she says to herself, “I need help. This is terrible.”
She sets on my front step for a few seconds, gets up, then knocks on door. Looks around. Then leaves.
After I see vid, run to sidewalk… look up and down. Nothing. I run back in, put shoes on, go out and again, looking. Nothing.
I call 911 tell the police what happened, they send someone out, but they don’t get here till about 30 minutes later. So basically police show up a full 45 minutes after the girl knocked on my door.
While waiting for police, I see neighbor, 2 houses down, pulling out of driveway. I run up to him, show him vid, tell him what happened, he says he’ll check his cams, but he didn’t get a knock or doorbell ring.
I’m kicking myself that I didn’t at least check the porch cam right when doorbell rang. I legit can not stop thinking about that girl knocking on a strangers (my) door hoping I would answer.
She was out of breath, but wasn’t banging on the door extra loud or anything. No crying. And I have neighbors all over and across the street. And just a block down is a 7-11.
So it probably wasn’t super serious (I hope!), and maybe she just lost her phone or something (I hope!). But I can’t sleep thinking about it.
I posted the vid to my local nextdoor community webpage, posted on facebook, etc. All in the hopes that someone will recognize her.
What would you guys do in this situation? Anything I could have done differently (other than answer the door)?
tl;dr: I ignored doorbell thinking it was just amazon package. Check porch cam later and realize it was teen girl saying she needed help and that something terrible happened. Police didn’t arrive till 45 minutes later and no sign of girl.
If she looked for help because of violent parents, it might be dangerous to have that video of her online
Could point. On the other hand, if she’s missing maybe someone knows her or recognizes her.
I get why the feelings sucks. You’re in your head and somehow only the worst possible outcomes ruminate. You’ve called the cops, good on you.
You’re not in charge of the world, there ought to be others who are charged with taking care of that girl. Their failure in preventing her from showing up on your porch is not your fault either and she’s their responsibility, not yours. Keep repeating that in your head.
Thanks for that!
I mean, this prolly sounds pessimistic but could be a scam? Using a innocent looking person to get people to open up while so rough customers hide somewhere?
Yeah, I have heard of that scam. And I think it’s a real thing, but not in this case–at least for that scam. Because my vid shows her walking up and walking away alone.
But I think I’ve finally relaxed and am not as worried for her as I was. Lots of houses here. Lots of stores down the street less than a block away. And she didn’t run to or from my door. So whatever it was, it def didn’t appear life threatening as in she was in immediate danger.
I have two cars in my driveway as well. Truck and a jeep. So I don’t think anyone was scouting my house thinking I’m little old lady. I’ve watched the video over and over. No torn clothes. Hair was up in a neat bun. Wasn’t crying.
But the out of breath part and the saying she needed help because something terrible happened is what sorta is sticking with me. Even tho, since I wrote the post and cleared my thoughts a bit, who actually says that outloud when talking to themselves?! And the lack of urgency in the walking to and from my door is strange. But also, I know that people under stress react differently, so…
What does disappoint me tho, is how little the police seemed to worry about it. They just didn’t see it as a big deal. I played the vid. They agreed it was strange. But no one asked for copy of my vid or screen shot the vid or anything. I checked missing persons site for my area. Checked police blotter. No missing people that match this. So I guess I’ll just have to accept I did what I did. And if something does happen, then I have a time stamp, so I’m saving the vid.
Wouldn’t they have shown up on the cam?
I have cam footage from both my driveway leading up to my porch and my porch. No one is with her as she comes up to porch or as she walks away from porch. She may still have been a scammer, but it wasn’t that scam.
Not if they’re any good.
