An Arkansas couple noticed food and clothes missing from their home only to find a man was living in their basement.
On April 29, Dutch Hoggatt and his wife, Sharon, discovered that Preston Landis had allegedly been living in their Searcy home for several days, police said.
The couple noticed their items mysteriously moving or disappearing and assumed they were slowly going crazy, reported KTHV.
‘I came in looking for my work shoes. I always leave them by the back door. My work shoes were gone,’ Hoggatt told the outlet.
‘I asked my wife if she had thrown them away, and she had not. Over time, we noticed that chairs had been moved around in the house. We noticed that some of our food was missing.’
They found a deadbolt on their door locked when neither of them had touched it. Chairs seemed to move from one place to another all on their own.
Donuts and apples had been mysteriously eaten while the couple was out of the house, reported KARK.
Their daughter, Cherisse, and son-in-law, Mark Gregory, decided to help search the home, hoping to ease the couple’s anxieties while Hoggatt was away at church.
Dutch Hoggatt and his wife Sharon noticed that thing in their home were mysteriously disappearing and going missing at the end of April
Preston Landis, 41, was arrested after he was discovered allegedly living in an Arkansas couple’s home
Harrowing surveillance footage showed the man inside the family’s home
‘We stopped by our house. I grabbed my bat and a gun just in case,’ Gregory said. ‘We didn’t know what to expect.’
During their search, Sharon crept into a storage area in the basement where she saw a leg peeking out from beneath the stairs.
‘I could see that she was freaked out, so they backed out of the room, and I went in,’ Gregory said.
Immediately, Sharon called 911 as the family tried to coax Landis, 41, out of his hiding place.
At first, Landis sat silently. Then, Gregory yelled at him to get out and began hitting the door with his baseball bat.
Landis scampered out of the house without issue, though barbed wire marks had previously scarred his face, he told officials.
The family alleged that the man had first entered the home through its crawl space on April 27 to take shelter from severe weather in the area.
Landis made his way to the basement by April 28, where he constructed a makeshift bed in a basement storage closet, the family alleged.
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The family discovered that Landis made a makeshift bed for himself in a storage area underneath a basement staircase
Landis was arrested on April 29 by the White County Sheriff’s Office
Gregory sat and talked with Landis until the White County Sheriff’s Office arrived.
‘I don’t think he was trying to be a bad guy,’ Gregory said.
‘There was plenty of opportunities where he could have taken things. It seemed like he was just trying to get out of the elements, trying to survive.’
Landis was arrested and charged with residential burglary and theft of property.
Cherisse said he apologized before being whisked away from her parents’ house.
‘He did say, “Tell your folks that I’m really sorry and they seem like really nice people,”‘ she said.
Though he allegedly swiped clothes and food, the Hoggatts shared that nothing valuable was missing.
The family said they knew Landis ‘wasn’t really a threat.’
The couple’s daughter Cherisse assisted in searching the house to clear their suspicions
Cherisse and her husband Mark Gregory searched the coupled home and found Landis allegedly living in the basement
‘We’re not angry at this man,’ Hoggatt said. ‘I feel sorry for the man. I’m glad we figured out there was somebody living in the house because this could have gone on for much longer than it did.’
Hoggatt is a professor at Harding University, where he teaches in the Communications Department.
According to a LinkedIn page associated with Landis, the suspect attended Harding University between 2008 and 2011.
He has worked as a door manufacturer, pipe bender and lumber grader.
Landis was booked by the White County Sheriff’s Office. His bond was set for $15,000.
The Daily Mail contacted the White County Sheriff’s Office for more information.
