Teen Hid While Burglars Ransacked Home

A teenager home alone who hid in bed from two intruders and alerted her mother by text message said Thursday she pulled bed sheets over her head because she believed it was the safest thing to do.

Lauren Durnbaugh, 13, said she figured the thieves would look in closets and under her bed for items to steal, so she curled up under the covers and kept still, even when one of the intruders sat at the edge of the bed and unhooked cords from her laptop computer.

"I could feel him sitting next to me. He was inches away," Durnbaugh said. The intruders apparently were unaware of her presence, authorities said.

While Durnbaugh hid Tuesday morning, her mother rushed home while phoning 911, a call that led to the arrest of two suspects, authorities said.

"My daughter's home from school and she says there's people in the house," her mother, Margo Roby, says in the 911 call released Thursday. "She thinks we're being robbed. She said there's people in the house, she can hear their voices."

Durnbaugh, who was home sick, said she was in a hallway when she heard someone open an unlocked rear door. She climbed into bed as the suspects began ransacking rooms in the house about 15 miles southeast of Columbus.

"OMG Im scard," Durnbaugh said in the text message to her mother, who was working at a car dealership about 15 minutes away. "I think were being robd Im hiding help me!"

Roby said she looked at the message and instantly felt sick.

"Just a rush of panic," she said. "And I could not get out of there fast enough."

Speaking slowly while driving at speeds of up to 85 mph, Roby told a sheriff's dispatcher she was worried she would run out of gas before she reached her daughter.

Roby, 53, said she used one cell phone to call authorities and another to stay in contact with her daughter. But Durnbaugh hung up several times because she was afraid the intruders would hear her mother's voice

"And I thought her phone would ring to music, so I was afraid to call her back," Roby said. "So, of course I'm driving, sick to my stomach, waiting for her to call me."

Roby arrived home and saw that the intruders' vehicle parked in her driveway. Worried that the intruders were about to drive off with Durnbaugh, Roby said she rammed her vehicle into the back of the suspects' car.

"All that popped in my head was they could walk right out and put her in that car and leave," she said.

One of the suspects, Jenna Marie Burns, came out of the house and Roby wrestled with her just as sheriff's deputies and the Lithopolis police chief arrived, authorities said.

Durnbaugh went back to school Wednesday.

"It's still kind of nerve-racking, just thinking about what could have happened," Durnbaugh said. "But I'm OK."

Burns, 20, of Orient, and Jeremiah Lee Fyffe, 26, of Lockbourne, were charged with burglary. Both remained in a county jail Thursday on $100,000 bond. A robbery charge was also filed against Burns accusing her of assaulting Roby, authorities said.

Burns' mother, Virginia Burns, has said her daughter is goodhearted but made a bad choice in people to associate with. A phone listing for Fyffe could not be found.