Family Finds Homeless Man Living in Basement After Items Go Missing

A Harding University professor and his family in Arkansas found a stranger living in their basement after items began disappearing from their home.

Dutch Hoggatt told KTHV he first grew suspicious when a pair of shoes he left near the back door vanished. "I asked my wife if she had thrown them away, and she had not," he said. "Over time, we noticed that chairs had been moved around in the house. We noticed that some of our food was missing."

Authorities identified the man as Preston Landis, who had lived secretly in the home for several days. He started in a crawl space before moving to the basement.

Hoggatt and his wife Sharon told their daughter Cherisee and son-in-law Mark Gregory about the odd occurrences. "I think they thought they were both going crazy. And I’m like, 'That doesn’t happen at the same time suddenly,'" Cherisee Gregory said.

On April 29, with Dutch at church, the family searched the house. Sharon entered a storage closet under the basement stairs. "She went further into the closet, and that’s when I saw her eyes get really big. She starts to back out and says, 'There’s someone in there. I see their leg or their jeans or something,'" Mark Gregory said.

Mark went down to check. The person stayed silent. "When I get in the closet, I yell at the guy to come out," he told KTHV. "I have a baseball bat in one hand. I start hitting the door, or the frame, kind of just to scare him a little bit. And he finally says, 'OK, I’m coming.'"

Landis emerged and told the family he was homeless as deputies from the White County Sheriff’s Office arrived to arrest him. He had entered the property on April 27, moved from the crawl space to the basement on April 28 and set up a makeshift bed in the supply closet.

The sheriff’s office charged Landis with residential burglary and theft of property. His bond is $15,000.

The family said nothing was stolen and expressed sympathy for Landis. "We’re not angry at this man," Dutch said. "I feel sorry for the man. I’m glad we figured out there was somebody living in the house because this could have gone on for much longer than it did."