Caught inside the house, a Burton burglar trips, falls and leaves his gun behind

A burglar inside a Burton home on Parris Island Gateway fell and dropped his handgun on the way out Sunday evening after a resident saw him and screamed, according to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office report.

A woman who lived at the Beaufort Mobile Home Park residence was just getting out of the shower when she saw the man, “peeking around the kitchen wall in her home,” according to the report. She screamed, and her son came out to see what was happening, they told deputies shortly before 6 p.m. Sunday.

When he was spotted, the suspect allegedly pointed a handgun at the woman before running out of the house, according to the report. He tripped and fell on his way off the property and dropped the handgun in the driveway before running away toward St. Pauls Church Road. He didn’t demand anything of the mother and son, make any threats or even say anything at all.

The suspect was described in the report as an approximately 5-foot-10 and 185-pound black male with short black hair in his late teens or early 20s. He was wearing a dark blue hooded sweatshirt and dark blue pants at the time.

The home’s front door was not locked at the time of the home invasion and nothing was reported stolen, according to the report. The Sheriff’s Office took the handgun in as evidence.

This story was originally published January 8, 2018 at 5:35 PM with the headline "Caught inside the house, a Burton burglar trips, falls and leaves his gun behind."