For one wannabe-robber, his nighttime attempt at thievery landed him in the hospital, proving that sometimes the unlikeliest person is the one who packs the mightiest punch. As a New York bodybuilder was getting ready for bed, a knock came at the front door. It was 11 and the house was dark, but the knocking continued, becoming more and more insistent with each thud.
Willie Murphy told news outlet 13WHAM there was a man yelling, “…please call an ambulance because I’m sick, I’m sick.” Now most people would be terrified. But Murphy isn’t just a bodybuilder — she’s also an 82-year-old weightlifting champion. She tells the man at her door that she will call the police to help, but refuses to let him inside. As she was on the phone with dispatchers, she said the man became angry at being left outside. “I hear a loud noise, I’m thinking, ‘what the heck was that,’” Murphy said.
The young man is in my home. He broke the door.”
She was shocked, she said, but not too concerned. She can, afterall, deadlift 225 pounds. “He picked the wrong house to break into,” Murphy said, smiling. It was dark in her house, so Murphy sat the phone down and hid as the man made his way through her home.
82-year-old Willie Murphy recently beat up a wannabe robber who showed up at her house. Photo by 13WHAM
The nearest thing to use as a weapon was a table, she said. “I took that table and I went to working on him, and guess what? The table broke!” As the intruder fell down, Murphy continued the beating. “When he’s down, I’m jumping on him.” In 13WHAM’s news report, the spry grandmother demonstrated how she continued to stomp on the man. While the thief was left cowering on the ground, injured, Murphy sprinted into her kitchen and grabbed a baby shampoo bottle. All the while, the dispatchers were listening in on the phone Murphy had sat down just minutes earlier.
“There’s a bottle of baby shampoo on the table,” she said. “I grab the shampoo and guess what? He is still on the ground. (I poured it) in his face. All over it. The whole thing. He’s trying to get up and he’s pulling and I got the broom and he’s pulling the broom and I’m hitting him, I’m hitting him with the broom, hitting him and guess what? He wants to get the heck out of there … I had really did a number on that man, I’m serious. I think he was happy when he went in the ambulance.”
After police officers arrived and took custody of the injured robber, they congratulated Murphy on her fight. “The officers that came wanted to go on my front porch and take selfies with me,” she said. A few days later, Murphy showed up at her YMCA to work out and was greeted as a hero by her friends. She said she knew that she was capable of taking care of herself. “I’m alone and I’m old but guess what? I’m tough.” Watch below to see the courageous grandma talk about her brush with a robber.
