A suspected burglar got more than he bargained for on Tuesday night in New Haven.
The homeowner, Jason Bayer knocked out Vernon McKoy, 44, of East Haven, who broke into the front patio of Bayer's home, police said.
"The last thing you expect is to have somebody in your house," Bayer said.
Bayer had gone to bed early but then heard banging on the front door of his Concord Street home in the East Shore section of the city.
"I heard it two more times and my fiancée had said to the dogs be quiet because she knew I wasn't feeling very well," Bayer said.
Angela Marino, his fiancee, thought it was Bayer's brother, but then she saw a moving silhouette on the porch.
"And I could hear the fear in her voice, so when she thought she heard someone in the house, I immediately jumped out of bed and came running down the stairs," Bayer said.
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He then encountered McKoy, who police said had snuck in through their unlocked patio door.
It's a door the couple usually keeps locked.
"I stepped out onto the porch and said, 'What are you doing in my house, and at that point, the person came at me," Bayer said.
Not sure if McKoy was armed, he took his chances and socked him.
"He collapsed onto a table … shattering that table. The amount of rage that was coming out of me and just my whole demeanor at that point. ... I think he realized that he'd picked the wrong house," Bayer said.
The burglar came to and said, "'I'm in the wrong house, I got lost, I'm following my girlfriend.''" Bayer said. "And it was just a barrage of, literally, one story after the next."
"It sort of hits home that there was a stranger in your house," Marino said.
Bayer has lived in the house for eight years and has never had a problem.
"Obviously she's my world and that was what made me so enraged. To think that he had violated that. ... He had come into my home. What would have happened if I wasn't here," he said.
Marino described Bayer and his brother as a force to be reckoned with and said they'll be keeping a closer eye on things in the coming days.
Police arrested McKoy and charged him with burglary and criminal mischief.
