Police searching for suspect who pulled daytime heist
Colby Duhon was returning home from school when he entered his house in Norco and ended up face to face with a masked man pointing a knife at him in the kitchen.
“I was scared,” said the 18-year-old senior at Destrehan High School. “You don’t go home thinking you’re going to get stabbed.”
The man, a white male, was dressed completely in black, including a hoodie and bandana covering all but his eyes, with a plain baseball cap and leather gloves.With the knife aimed at him, Colby observed what he considered a moment of indecision in his eyes about what he’d do next.
“It went through his mind if he should just do it,” he said of the man stabbing him. But Colby also believed his 6-foot, 2-inch build might have weighed on this man’s mind as to whether he really wanted this kind of formidable confrontation. Even so, Colby still feared for his life so he carefully handed over his cell phone hoping it would show the intruder that he would cooperate.
Having observed what he considered to be an intensely focused man with a glaring gaze and noticeably steady hands, Colby decided his best move was to convince the man to let him go.
Then he pleaded for his life.
Speaking few words, the intruder told Colby to head to the front door, but added several times as they walked ahead to not look back at him.
Colby made it to the porch, then eased onto the grass and then bolted onto Clayton Drive. He said the man yelled something at him, but he was too busy running to make out what he said.
Unharmed but afraid, Colby ran as fast as he could to a neighbor’s house, but just before entering he glanced back and watched the man re-enter his house. He dialed 911 and called his mother.
Sheriff’s detectives soon arrived and so did his panicked mother, Holly Duhon.
It was around 11:45 a.m. Feb. 23 with schools letting students out early because of severe weather when Holly said she got a phone call from a number she didn’t recognize. She almost ignored it, but something told her to answer.
“All I could make out was him saying something about a man in the house with a knife,” she said. “I replied, ‘What are you joking me?’”
When it set in that this was real, she said everything got hazy.
Holly rushed home and found Colby with detectives.
She determined that her son had entered the house from the carport and found the door open. On the way in, he saw a maroon bicycle with black handle bars, which is believed to be the burglar’s getaway vehicle.
Sensing something was strange, Colby walked into the house and heard a shuffling sound coming from the bedroom. As he reached for his phone to call 911, the man cornered him in the kitchen bearing a knife.
Both were caught off guard.
It was senior sleep-in day for Colby so he didn’t have to be at school until 9:15 a.m. and, being on an early schedule as a senior, returned by 11:45 a.m.
“It’s devastating,” Holly said. “You just don’t know the violation you feel of someone going through your personal items, and just the fact that this man could do this to your child.”
Detectives told her the intruder entered the house through a window with no apparent witnesses in one of Norco’s populated neighborhoods near Apple Street.
“He was so brazen he went through the window facing the street,” Holly said. “He took a bucket and put it against the house to help get into the window.”
When Hank, Holly and Colby Duhon were finally able to return into their house, Holly said the burglar had torn up rooms and closets to get everything he could. Irreplaceable keepsakes and family mementoes were all gone, as well as electronics and even over-the-counter medications from the bathroom.
Guns had been laid on the floor in the house and garage suggesting he’d been in the house for a while and planned to return, but she said it appeared Colby’s early arrival disrupted his plan.
Crimestoppers GNO is offering up to a $2,500 reward for information leading to an arrest with the aggravated burglary. To provide information, call 1- (877) 903-STOP.Detectives told her they suspected a local man, Jonathan McPhail, of the crime. But McPhail said he had an alibi confirmed by camera footage that he had been with his wife at East Jefferson General Hospital for the birth of his child at the time of the burglary.
The Sheriff’s Office soon rescinded the arrest warrant for McPhail and are now asking the public for information about the incident.
According to Sheriff’s Office spokesman Capt. Pat Yoes,
“When detectives made contact with McPhail they were able to find irrefutable video evidence that showed McPhail could not have committed the crime.”
McPhail was released with no charges and the incident remains under investigation.
But for Holly, the burglar took so much more than just keepsakes and mementos. He also stole their sense of security and her son’s innocence, she said. The home invasion has left her hurt, sad and angry.
Hank and Holly Duhon are outraged over the man threatening their son.
“That’s really where the anger is coming from … how can you do that to someone else’s child?” Holly lamented.
The Duhons also feel Norco has been becoming more unsafe in recent years.
“We love Norco,” Holly said. “One of the reasons we stay is because of the safety of a small community. Everybody kind of knows everybody, but it seems in the last couple of years people we didn’t know before have been moving into Norco.”What may seem small to the intruder is a life changing event for the Duhons.
For Colby, it has had an effect.
“It’s just weird not being able to come home and feel safe,” he said. “Your home is supposed to be where you feel safest it. If not, where do you go?”
Be the first to comment