Bizarre, Criminal law

College Student Thinks She Has A Ghost . . . Instead Finds Homeless Man In Her Closet In Her Clothes

A University of North Carolina college student in Greensboro thought she had a ghost in her apartment. Clothes were disappearing and she would hear movement or knocks. However, when she finally summoned the courage to look inside, she found a man in her closet, dressed in her clothes.

The student named Madie told told WGHP-TV that she came home and called out, “who’s there? And somebody answers me. He’s like ‘oh my name is Drew.’ I open the door and he’s in there, wearing all of my clothes. My socks. My shoes. And he has a book bag full of my clothes.”

According to Heavy, Swofford has a history of 25 charges against him, including the breaking and entering charges as well as identity theft, possessing stolen goods and resisting, delaying or obstructing a peace officer. While he seemed a regular presence in Maddie’s closet, he is less regular in court. He has five charges for failure to appear in court in a misdemeanor case and 14 counts of failure to appear in court in a felony case. In 2013, he was given probation for felony drug possession charges but the probation was revoked in 2015. He served four months in jail on that violation as well as a year and two months in state prison on drug charges in 2015 and 2016.

Notably, Swofford is only charged so far with misdemeanor breaking and entering. It would seem a tad more serious than that. He is now however facing other charges for other crimes including breaking and entering.

22 thoughts on “College Student Thinks She Has A Ghost . . . Instead Finds Homeless Man In Her Closet In Her Clothes”

  2. It looks like he used her shampoo as well. He has surprisingly clean hair for a homeless guy. Eeewwww!! As much as this is creepy and dangerous, I did read an article about a trend of “recently homeless” people who are not used to being on the street breaking into people’s homes and living there. One example was of a couple who noticed food missing, but assumed the other spouse ate it, only to discover that a homeless man had been living in their attic for months. He would lay still while they were home and get up and use the home while they were at work. Another example was of an elderly man whose son discovered a homeless person living in the basement that the older man was too frail to access. People like this don’t need hard-core prison where they will be abused, but some type of facility where they are required to learn a trade and get a GED and counseling over a minimum two-year term might break the cycle of helplessness and homelessness.

    1. People like this don’t need hard-core prison where they will be abused, but some type of facility where they are required to learn a trade and get a GED and counseling over a minimum two-year term might break the cycle of helplessness and homelessness.

      Get convicted. Go to Club Fed and get vocational training. Sounds like we got our incentives just right.

      1. Burglary and trespassing are state crimes, not federal. And state prisons have long offered educational and vocational programs. Efforts to prevent recidivism are in everyone’s interests.

      2. Thank you. There’s a difference between helping people to remain safe and giving them stuff when they misbehave. There’s a reason a lot of the Country is angru right now….people that work hard to not become a burden are doing less well than many who don’t try at all. Some have good reason, many do not. The actual act of working takes the kind of time that does not always lend to going to school or learning a better trade. Screwing the people that follow the rules to help lift those that deliberately break them for the attention is not the way to go. Give help where it is needed in the right measure…the assistance to better ones education and trade should never be denied those who do the work of the Nation…and that is not just Military people…and those who don’t want to be criminals don’t need Ivy League education…they need to do the work of jobs first…or we will end up in a nAtion where crooks have been educated and rule and decent hard working people are led like lambs to the slaughter by crooks….

        Oh. Well nevermind…

      3. What did he learn in public school? lock him up and let him have the dress he’ll probably need it

  3. Anarcho-tyrrany in North Carolina. Prosecutors’ offices staffed with people like Michael Nifong and Tracy Cline, and then they cannot bring themselves to punish a serial scofflaw or even compel him to submit to legal process. Is there somewhere in American where TPTB aren’t given to a mixture of negligence and abuse?

  5. AT LEAST HE’S NOT VIOLENT

    However creepy the discovery, one rejoices in learning the subject is only a harmless loser. A ‘creepy’ harmless loser, but harmless nevertheless. The type who honestly doesn’t care if he goes to jail. And that might be a good place for him.

    2. He hasn’t been physically violent yet, that we know of. The psychological damage he must inflict on some victims is a form of violence. Should society wait until he escalates his crimes until he gets taken seriously?

    3. Breaking and Entering is most definitely a violent crime. That he has not yet felt the need to inflict physical damage does not mean that he wouldn’t. And that girls sense of safety is now violated and her every thought and action is now subject to the knowledge that she is not really safe at all. That is the effect of crime….it undermines the socially acceptable sensate by the socially unacceptable. It should not be tolerated.

  6. That would be so creepy. Sounds like the guy has mental health issues. I’m just surprised he used a male name. This would never happen if she had a cattle dog in her dorm room. Or Anatolian Shepherd. Or Kuvatsz.

  7. I would have charged him with residential burglary instead of just the misdemeanor trespass. He completed the burglary element by committing a crime of theft wherein he converted the homeowner’s clothing property by adorning it.

    Defendants such as this are incorrigible and a few years in prison is better than pussyfooting around with slaps on the wrist and the resultant recidivism.

    1. Darren, under California law this would be Burglary (if the prosecutor chooses). That charge can be used for any illegal entry into a residence.

      But technically he didn’t ‘steal’ the homeowner’s clothing. That would only be the case if he left the residence in her clothes (or carried them out in bags).

      Yet I agree with you, it should be: Felony Home Invasion.

      1. Thanks for the info.

        In WA the moment he adorned the clothing, he took possession of the garments since he converted it to his usage or advantage, here he would have completed criminal act to complete the intent element required to meet the residential burglary crime. I agree that it makes the case cleaner if he had departed the residence, though. In shoplifting offenses here it is not necessary for the defendant to leave the building but it does make the crime easier to prosecute. If a suspect in that example takes a widget and places it into her purse, she is considered to have deprived the owner since she converted it to her possession. The same is true of eating food items without first paying for them.

        Interestingly, one could argue a case for a burglary against shoplifters if they admit to deciding before entering the building that they intended to steal the item. That way they meet the “entering or remaining unlawfully in a building with the intent to commit a crime” element of burglary 2nd degree. Prosecutors do not seem to like charges based upon that. However if the suspect had been previously trespassed from the property by the shopkeeper, charging shoplifters in that scenario often includes a burglary in addition to the theft.

    3. Is prison the right disposition for mentally ill folks? It might be. We don’t have better answers other than easy access to birth control, safe health care for women, and severe punishment for rape.

      1. It’s the right disposition for people who break the law. Convicts who require supervisors with specialized skills can be housed in infirmaries or asylums operated by the prison system.

    4. Bring back caning. Prison is not the best punishment.

      I explain: This guy will be turned out as a punk in prison. Look at him. That would be cruel and unnecessary. It will not rehabilitate him it will make him worse and he will come out a bigger problem
      So, That’s what judges may be thinking.

      We need physical sanctions that are immediate and modestly painful but do not involve incarceration. And asylums are full.

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