In Florida, a married woman was talking to her husband using her hands free mobile device, while he was still at home and she was out. The conversation stopped, but the phone was still on and picking up everything being said around her, which her husband could hear. After what he heard, he had a surprise waiting for her when she got home.
Priscilla Cercone had been chatting it up with her husband after work on Tuesday evening, keeping her hands free by using a Bluetooth device that she put in her ear. He was waiting for her back at home, while asking her questions about her day. After a moment of silence, he heard another man’s voice. What the new person didn’t realize was that the Bluetooth was picking everything up, and his evening wasn’t going to go as planned.
The woman’s unnamed husband got a sense something was wrong when his wife stopped responding to his questions but hadn’t officially ended their conversation. According to Local10 News, Cercone had gotten out of her car at about 5:30 p.m. to get the mail from her mailbox. That’s when she stopped talking, but 21-year-old Bernard Owens could be heard whispering in her other ear, which didn’t have the mobile device in it.
Owens put a gun to the woman’s head and demanded she drive him to the ATM and drain her account for him. Her husband listened live as the mugging happened, and his wife, scared for her life, follow the criminal’s orders. She withdrew $400 for him, but he wasn’t satisfied with that amount. That’s when he took his crime a step further, announcing what he was about to do, unknowingly giving her husband the heads up, who was then prepared for him.
Wanting to get the most that he could out of this hold up, Owens instructed his victim to take him back to her house. He planned to take anything and everything of value, saying that if she didn’t comply, he would kill her.
As the terrified woman pulled up to her house, she saw a swarm of police officers surrounding it and jumped from the car to safety, while Owens was still inside. Cercone’s husband had called the cops early in the robbery, then stayed on the line with his wife’s Bluetooth to give directions as to their whereabouts.
Owens tried to evade police by making a run for it, but they quickly caught up with him. He was charged with robbery with a firearm, possession of a weapon or ammo by a convicted Florida felon, false imprisonment of an adult, and kidnapping with intent to commit or facilitate commission of a felony, ABC News reported.
Cercone attributes her Bluetooth and her husband’s quick thinking for saving her life. She urges others to always wear and keep a mobile device on when you’re alone, as a layer of protection, should something like this happen.
