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“This clearly was a home invasion, not a ‘strange occurrence’,” as police initially suggested early Monday, the 64-year-old resident said.
Surveillance video shows a dark-colored sedan pulling up to the home near the corner of Congress and Albany streets around 3 a.m. Sunday, Police Chief Robert Kugler said.
The wife said she was asleep on the living-room couch when the sound of someone trying to pry open a locked door woke her.
She said she at first thought it was one of her daughters coming -- but then suddenly a large man "busted the door open and ran up my stairs."
The "over 300-pound 6-feet-3-or-4-or-more inches animal either had the wrong house or he was on drugs," the woman said.
He didn't smell of alcohol, she noted.
After running past two closed bedroom doors, "the whole time making grunting sounds," the woman said, the intruder knocked open a door at the end of the hall where her husband had been sleeping.
He pointed at her husband and said, "YOU, OK," then turned and came toward her, she said.
"He looked at me and turned around and flipped my very heavy table and threw it down the stairs," the woman said.
Then he left.
The intruder -- who had long hair and a short beard and was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt -- then got back into the sedan and it drove off, said Kugler, the police chief.
“It is not believed to be a violent intrusion with criminal intent but seems more like an intoxicated person either at the wrong address or here for some other variable not known to us at the moment,” he said.
"We are all blessed to be alive," the woman said.
Anyone who saw anything or has surveillance video or information that could help find the person responsible is asked to contact Saddle Brook police: (201) 843-7000.
NOTE: Police Chief Robert Kugler said that an initial report came from preliminary information collected at the scene.
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