The mystery involving three masked intruders – dressed as Michael Myers, a horror clown and a sinister nun – who pounded on the door of a Northern Virginia home and threatened to kill those inside has been solved.
It was relatives, playing a prank.
Ha, ha.
The family members who were victimized in the Oct. 14 incident are not pressing charges, Alexandria Police Chief Tarrick McGuire said Monday.
“While this case may not result in prosecution, it represents a serious moral failure,” McGuire said. “For this community, it represents a moral failure, a moral failure where consequences could have resulted in deadly consequences.”
The victims were not aware of the identities of the pranksters until notified by police, who sorted through hundreds of tips and spent more than 100 hours reviewing the case to try to ID the perpetrators.
The chilling door-cam video from what we now know to be a prank went viral.
“It’s either you coming out, or we coming in,” one of perps – who police say were three teens, two sons and the nephew of the woman who thought up the prank, who joined in the fun as two other adults filmed the scene from the street – said, menacingly.
Another said: “It’s your worst nightmare!”
“At first I thought it was just a Halloween joke, so I said, Happy Halloween,” said Shayla Whiteside, who was inside the home with her mother.
As the pounding on the door grew louder, “my heart dropped when they said they were gonna take a chair and break down the door,” Whiteside said. “That is just too much.”
Whiteside called her brother to ask him to come to the home, and he brought a gun with him.
“Our Second Amendment right was not used, and could have been,” Whiteside said.
Which, yes, is fortunate for all involved.
“They were absolutely terrified when this happened,” McGuire said. “Her brother responded with a firearm. So, absolutely, it could have resulted in deadly consequences.”
The adult woman who instigated the prank is a cousin of the victim, said McGuire, who said he respects the homeowners’ decision not to press charges, given that it involves family.
“From a human perspective, while this was very challenging, we also have to ask: Does this individual desire to prosecute against their family? And I think that they decided not to, and we have to work through that. We have to try to respect that decision,” he said.
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Chris Graham
