PITTSBURGH, Pa., (CNN) — A Pennsylvania woman thought that someone had been entering her home for weeks while she was away.
She tried to ignore it but soon discovered an ex-boyfriend was living in her attic.
“I feel that this is going to affect me for the rest of my life,” said the woman.
She didn’t want to give her name or show her face to protect her identity, but she did share what happened to her.
“I had an intuition about it, but I ignored it. I brushed it aside. I didn’t want to seem paranoid or, you know, you never think this will happen to you but I should have trusted my instinct because I was right,” said the woman.
For the last three weeks, she says she saw signs inside of her home that someone else might be living there.
She was afraid it was her ex-boyfriend Cary Cocuzzi.
The first sign was the toilet seat in her bathroom.
“Nobody in my home uses the bathroom that way. And I didn’t have any visitors, so I just thought ‘gosh, is this guy in my house? This is so strange,” said the woman.
The second sign was this blanket she found in a corner of her basement where no one ever went.
“I knew that blanket had not been there before. I knew it. But what could I do? I already had the PFA against him. I can’t call the police and say there’s a blanket in my basement,” said the woman.
She did have an active PFA against Cocuzzi, but on Saturday night she found him standing in the middle of her bedroom.
He grabbed her by the face and she fought him off and ran outside, screaming, when six different neighbors called 911.
She’s thankful her two daughters weren’t home but, she also feels incredibly violated and worries about what might happen when Cocuzzi gets out of jail.
Police say Cocuzzi told them he has been homeless several times in the past two years.