Burglar Tries to Get Inside Home Where Teen Is Alone. But That All Changes After She Grabs Gun and Threatens to Shoot.

After her mother left for the store Wednesday afternoon, 17-year-old Faith Shilkett was alone in her family's home in Franklin Township, Indiana, with only her dog Duke to keep her company.

Then around 2 p.m. Duke began barking.

Image source: WXIN-TV

When the teen walked out of her room to find out what was up, she saw a man knocking on the front door.

Image source: WXIN-TV

“He was big. He was muscular. He looked like he could do damage if he got a hold of you,” she told WXIN. “I was scared if he got in, he could’ve hurt me.”

Faith Shilkett (Image source: WXIN-TV)

That unnerving sight prompted Shilkett to run through the house and lock the other doors — and in that time the burglar made it around to a deck door and started banging on it.

Image source: WXIN-TV

He went through the unlocked garage entrance and jiggled the handle to the door leading into the house and looked through its window, she said.

Finally Shilkett ran to her mother's room and grabbed a gun.

Image source: WXIN-TV

“I stayed back here, and I started yelling ‘I’m here. I have a gun. I’m going to shoot,’” she told the station.

Shilkett said she called for help and heard rustling in the garage before the burglar hightailed it in a white van.

“Your child is your life. I couldn’t even think straight,” her mother Amy Shilkett told WXIN. “All I was thinking is, ‘How quickly can I get here?’”

Faith Shilkett's mother Amy (Image source: WXIN-TV)

By the time Mom got home, Indianapolis police were on the scene. The burglar — who is white and about 6 feet tall with brown hair — got away with a generator, power washer and other tools from the garage.

“Items can be replaced, but obviously your daughter can’t be," Amy Shilkett told the station. "That was my biggest worry."