Thursday's Internet Edition, September 09, 2010.

Doug and Patricia Marks say a man dressed in black carrying a machine gun entered their bedroom after midnight Sunday and demanded money. Photo by David Hedges

“I can believe something like this happening in a big city,” she said, “but not here in Spencer.”

Marks, 28, and her boyfriend/ex-husband, Doug Marks, 37, live in a three-story apartment building at 1924 Ripley Rd.

They had been in bed a couple of hours Sunday night when Doug heard a noise just after midnight.

With an air conditioner, fan and television all running, he said he failed to hear the person who had kicked in the front door.

But when he did hear a noise in the living room, he thought it might be Patricia.

“I reached over and found out she was still in bed,” he said. “That’s when I knew somebody was in the house.”

Patricia said she saw a shadow in the next room before a man entered their bedroom.

He was dressed in black from head to toe, with only his eyes and mouth visible, and carrying a military-style rifle Doug said resembled an AK-47.

He flipped the light switch on and made a very simple request.

“He said, ‘Give me all your money,'” Patricia said. “Then he cocked the chamber on the gun.

“I put my head under the covers because I thought I was going to die right there,” she said.

Doug reached for the gun and tried to pull it out of the man’s hands.

“I heard him jack one in the chamber and I knew he was going to kill us,” he said. “I grabbed the gun and pushed him back in the living room.”

The two men continued wrestling over the weapon. At one point, Doug said the man hit him above the eye with the butt of the gun, and blood began to pour from the cut.

“He tried to knock me out, and if did, he probably would have killed us,” he said.

The fight raged on as Patricia frantically called 911 and then ran outside to scream for help.

At one point in the struggle, the clip fell out of the rifle. The intruder reached for it, but Doug said he managed to kick it away.

The battle that began in the bedroom and moved into the living room continued in the kitchen and out the same door where the intruder entered. At that point, Doug was pounding the man’s head into the railing of a walkway outside the second story apartment.

“I was banging his head on the porch rail and he said, ‘Let me up. I’ve had enough. I’ll leave,’” Doug said.

The man pulled free and ran down the stairs, out of the apartment building and in the direction of the road.

He didn’t get anything out of the apartment, but he did leave something behind.

The clip from his gun was still on the living room floor.

“The clip was full,” Doug said. “It probably had 50 or 60 rounds in it.”

The struggle, along with Patricia’s screaming, awakened the neighbors in the building with five apartments, but none reported hearing a car drive off.

“A couple of people saw him running up the driveway,” Doug said. “He might have had a car waiting for him down the road.”

Sgt. Kevin Unger and Deputy David Satterfield of the Roane Sheriff’s Dept. responded, as did Patrolman John Westfall of the Spencer Police Dept.

Doug was taken to Roane General Hospital, where he received five stitches to close the gash in his head.

Landlord Don Gill repaired the door the next day.

“He said it didn’t look like it was broken in,” Patricia said. “It was kicked in.”

The couple was staying with her mother on Monday, but they planned to return as soon as their nerves calmed down a bit.

“I’m still all shook up, but I’ve lived here two or three years,” Patricia said.

Doug said he wasn’t about to be forced out of his own home.

“I can’t be running,” he said. “I never had anyone break in my home before, but if he comes back, I’ll be ready for him.”

He also advised people to keep their doors and windows locked and be prepared.

“You never know if you’ll be next,” he said.

Those with information about this or any crime may contact the Roane Sheriff’s Dept. at 304-927-3410 or leave a message on the sheriff’s tipline, 304-927-8800.