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Mom confronts intruder in Cottonwood Heights home, suspect faces lewdness and burglary charges

Posted at 9:34 PM, May 11, 2018
and last updated 2018-05-11 23:35:15-04

COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, Utah -- A Cottonwood Heights mother is recounting the moments she caught and confronted a burglar in her home, with her children nearby.

Police said thanks to their quick response officers captured the man, later identified as 20-year old Keaton Boyce, trying to escape from the area with his pants around his ankles.

Normally, SueEllen Cummings said all the doors on her home stay locked.

But on Friday afternoon she said her son, a neighbor friend and the family puppy had gone out the back door and left it unlocked.

"I had been out of the shower, and I just heard a loud crash," she described.

She ran downstairs and said she found a stranger in her home.

"He had just broken something in my living room with his bare feet, broken some glass," Cummings said. "Found out later he had been in my children's room."

That's when she says, "Momma bear came out." All she wanted to do, she explained, was get this intruder out of the house.

"I yelled at him as he was coming out of our living room and just said, 'How did you get in? Why are you here? Who are you? Why are you in my home?'" she recounted.

Cummings didn't have her phone nearby and couldn't call for help, but she said her daughter upstairs heard Cummings yelling at the burglar and called out to Siri to dial 911.

Police said they arrived in under two minutes.

"He was less than three houses away when officers were arriving on the scene," said Sergeant Ryan Shosted with Cottonwood Heights Police.

Sgt. Shosted said Boyce could face residential burglary and lewdness charges. He said the lewdness charge stems from officers finding Boyce with his pants down while walking on the street.

He said they are still figuring out the motive behind the burglary, but said it could be drug related.

Cummings said she's just glad her family is safe.