An 87-year-old woman from Brunswick, Maine, recently took the stereotype of grandmothers who insist on giving visitors food to another level. She got into a fight with a teenager who broke into her house and then gave him something to eat because he was hungry.
Marjorie Perkins is at the center of one of the latest strange stories to emerge from the US criminal justice system. She was sleeping in her home when, around 2 a.m. on July 26, she woke up to see a 17-year-old boy standing over her, who told her, "I'm going to cut you [with a knife]."
"I thought to myself, 'If he's going to cut me, I'm going to kick,'" Marjorie told the Brunswick Times Record. So the former primary school teacher stood up and started to put on her shoes, but then began to be hit by the teenager.
She somewhat slowed the attack by grabbing a chair and using it as a shield. The teenager was the same as the one who cut the grass in the garden of the house 10 years ago. He pushed the 87-year-old and punched her repeatedly, delivering at least one blow to her forehead which left her bruised.
The old woman kicked him and prevented him from approaching with the chair. The boy got tired and went to the kitchen alone. That's when she realized he wasn't wearing pants and shoes.
"You have to go out," Marjorie - who had closed the door - told him. "You need help." He replied that "he was terribly hungry and hadn't eaten anything for a long time."
After that, she gave him a box of peanut butter, honey cookies, two tangerines and two bottles of protein shakes. The teenager took them and started eating them, while the 87-year-old woman called the police.
The boy fled before police arrived, but was later arrested and booked into a youth detention center on charges of theft, criminal threats and assault.
The elderly woman said she hopes the boy gets all the help he needs to get his life back on track.
