Axe-wielding man breaks into houses, terrorises community

Complaints alongside footages of the same man who breaks into people’s houses wielding an axe and steals their stuff have jumbled up in the US state of Tennessee. The local police have been trying to hunt him down as the community has grown restless.

“He’s terrorizing us … He’s coming out of the woods, he’s got a hatchet, he’s got a machete, he’s breaking into multiple homes and cars,” said Tammy Hale, one of the residents in the wooded neighbourhood Tennessee.

Over a dozen people have now filed reports of being scared away or mugged by him at nights and in the broad daylight.

Locals in several neighbourhoods across the community in Tennessee, said they’re living in fear. “We are not sleeping at night, because the same man keeps breaking into their homes — often with an axe.”

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CCTV videos from various neighbours showed the same man, holding either a hammer or an axe, breaking into homes, often at night, but recently in broad daylight.

The man didn’t stop at houses and in fact broke into a local church as well, early Sunday morning, according to neighbours.

Metro police detectives are following leads on about a dozen reports filed so far.

One of the videos showed the same man breaking into a home and then leaving with a suitcase full of expensive items.

A resident Peter De La Cruz told local media that the axe-wielding man has shown up on his property four times in the last three weeks.

“He stole some laptops out of my basement storage twice now, so I think he realized there’s more to get … I work on them and sell them,” De La Cruz said.

De La Cruz said that he watched the man hide at the side of his house with a hammer when he went there to corner him.

“I came out the front as he waited and waited, and as I came out the front door with a pistol, he was at the end of the driveway when I chased him,” De La Cruz said.

The neighbourhoods are very wooded, and several neighbours said the man runs into the woods when confronted.