Police search for man who led them on chase after robbing Apopka home

APOPKA, Fla. — Apopka police are trying to find the man who broke into a home while a woman was inside with her children.

Investigators said just before 10 p.m. Friday the man smashed his way into the woman's home through a window.

“I was going on with my day, putting my kids to bed and my night ended in horror,” the woman, who didn’t want to be identified, said.

She said she and her two small children locked themselves in a bedroom closet as the robber smashed his way into their home on Sheeler Hills Drive.

Apopka police suspect the man assumed no one was home.

The woman’s husband, Warrington Tyson, said he was out for the night but his wife, and seven and five year old children, were home and in fear for their lives.

“The audacity of someone to even come near my domain and scare me into a closet,” the woman said. “You forget that anything can happen at any moment.”

She said she spent several minutes on the phone with a 911 dispatcher, but it felt like an eternity.

When police arrived, they spotted the robber loading the family’s flat-screen television inside a stolen car.

They said the man got away after he led police on a brief chase that ended in a crash.

They searched for the man by helicopter and on the ground.

“They said they had a lot of evidence and a significant amount of DNA,” Tyson said.

WFTV