Burglar put in hospital by eighty-two-year-old ‘victim’

A young and fit burglar operating in the Rochester area got more than he bargained for when he tried to break into the home of an elderly woman more than 50 years his senior.

The 28-year old man may have thought that an 82-year-old living alone would be an easy mark.

But he certainly didn’t reckon with Willie Murphy, a woman in her ninth decade who is a bodybuilder and accomplished power lifter.

Murphy, who says she can deadlift 225 lbs, only took up weightlifting around 10 years ago. But it appears she dispatched her youthful adversary with relative ease.

Murphy, in an account given to her local news station WHAM, said the man banged on her door, yelling he was sick and demanding to be let in. Murphy called emergency responders but refused to let him inside. Then, she said, he just kicked in her door and barged in.

She grabbed the nearest object, a metal-legged table, and “went to working on him”, as she put it. “Guess what – the table broke.”

Murphy said she jumped on the intruder, poured shampoo on his face and hit him with a broom. She even tried to drag him out of the house, but he was too big.

“I’m hitting him, hitting him, hitting him with the broom,” she said. By the time police and emergency workers arrived, she said, “I had really did a number on that man … I think he was happy when he went in the ambulance.”

Dispatching the young burglar is not the first brush with fame for Rochester and America’s new heroine.

Sports network ESPN did its own piece on Murphy’s amazing achievements as a power lifter just last year.

So why on earth did a woman in her 70s take up weightlifting? “Just to maintain myself,” Murphy told ESPN.

“Everybody is not able to powerlift,” Murphy said. “A lot of older people, they’re into swimming, yoga, tai chi, various other things. But I guess I’m just unusual because I’m into natural powerlifting.” Back to 2019, and Murphy has this simple explanation for what transpired: “I’m alone and I’m old, but guess what – I’m tough. He picked the wrong house to break into.”