iN VIDEO: Watch this Kamloops grandma scare off backyard intruder | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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iN VIDEO: Watch this Kamloops grandma scare off backyard intruder

Kathleen Rollier quickly grabbed her coat and told off the intruder.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Kathleen Rollier

This guy picked the wrong house to skulk around early Thursday morning and now he knows it because Kathleen Rollier came right out and told him.

The Kamloops grandmother gave the man a stern talking after she caught him in her backyard in Brocklehurst.

She lives in the basement suite of her son and daughter-in-law’s home on the North Shore. When she heard the latch of the backyard gate at around 5 Thursday morning, she knew it was more than the wind.

“When he was walking I could see a shadow, and I thought, ‘oh, yeah, somebody’s out there.’ By the time I got my coat on, he was already at the corner at the back and I got mad at him.”

The 68-year-old woman has been undergoing radiation treatment and has no patience for intruders who disturb her.

“I’m fighting stomach cancer… I’m not sleeping so well because of the pain in my stomach from the radiation,” Rollier says. “He picked the wrong house.”

Although the intruder walked away when Rollier first banged on the window, he came back to face her when she came out. She says she felt no fear when marching outside and wanted the man to know he chose the wrong house to scope out.

“I’d say he’s close to six feet, and I’m only 5’2” but I don’t even think of it… it’s just what you do in life.”

Rollier says the man claimed he was looking to call a cab. You can see the interaction begin at about 1:27.

Credit: SUBMITTED / Tanya Hearsum Clooten

Rollier says she’s got the nickname T.D. - Tasmanian Devil. She’s always confronted intruders and wrongdoers, and although nothing has ever escalated to violence, she’s got some moves ready.

“If he comes at me, I know what I’m going to do. It’s pretty simple. below the waist, one shot and make it good. I trained as a nurse in the late '60s early ’70s, and we were taught a few things…. What I learned there all those years ago is still in my head,” Rollier says.

Although Rollier’s son and daughter-in-law got a notification for movement on the security cameras, the couple figured it was a passing vehicle until they woke, and Rollier told the family of the altercation.

“They weren’t surprised. That's just the way I am. It comes naturally to me, that's just who I am,” Rollier says.

When the family shared the security footage to a local Facebook group, they were notified that someone who looked like the same man used a hammer to smash the window of a front door near Holt Street and Parkcrest Avenue.

Cpl. Jodi Shelkie from the Kamloops RCMP confirms that a man was arrested in the Parkcrest area at roughly 5 a.m. after smashing the window of a front door. Police seized a hammer, which Rollier believes the man had with him when she spoke with him.

“Keep yourself safe first, there’s no property that’s worth risking your life over or potentially being harmed,” Shelkie says. “So we really recommend to people that if something suspicious is happening, somebody is in your yard, to contact the RCMP and we’ll come and determine what they’re there for and if it is of a criminal nature, we’ll take matters into our own hands.”

Rollier says her tough front is a behaviour that runs in her family, as her sister and mother also never stood down in sticky situations.

“My mother was the same way... We never have fights or anything. We just don't take crap,” Rollier says.

This isn’t the first time Rollier has taken a stand against questionable characters in the North Shore neighbourhood. She’s confronted potential car thieves over the past three years of living at their current location and tried to tell off some home invaders in the early 1980s.

“When our house was robbed on Fleetwood, they left the doors open. My husband said not to go in there but I said, ‘oh I’m going.’ He couldn’t stop me,” Rollier says. “He was really upset that I would barge in there, but I don’t care. I said, ‘wait out here if you want.’”

Although Rollier was able to shoo the stranger away, she knows that this method wouldn’t work well for everyone, and doesn’t recommend it for other people.

“If anybody is timid, I don’t recommend doing what I did. You have to know how to protect yourself.”


To contact a reporter for this story, email Jenna Wheeler or call (250) 819-6089 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

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