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Those of us who live in Belize City know that it’s generally not a good idea to walk on the streets after dark – tonight’s headline will demonstrate that sometimes city residents are not even safe within their own homes. The chilling store comes from the home of seventy two year old Olive Arnold of number six Fairweather Street. Miss Olive is a Belizean who has been living in the United States for some forty years but she tries to make annual trips back to Belize at least twice a year. But her first visit for 2009 may just be her last. That’s because only two days after arriving in the country two armed men broke into her home and held her up with a gun as she lay in bed watching television.

Today 7News sat down with this brave elderly woman inside her home as she recounted the close range terror that she and her daughters endured last night.

Olive Arnold, Robbery Victim
“About 7:30 I was laying down in my bedroom right there listening to the Belize news. I took the light off so that it could get colder. Five minutes after lying down there the young man came into my room with a handgun and he told me to be quiet. So I asked him who are you. He said just be quiet. I couldn’t be quiet. You got to take me down fighting because I started screaming and hollering. Then when my daughter they came running to see what was the matter with me then they pulled the gun after them and they ran out through the front window on the front step.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“But not before stealing some jewellery?”

Olive Arnold,
“Not before stealing their jewellery. They popped my chain off my neck and another friend of mine that was here, they pulled her jewellery off. My nephew’s wife, she wasn’t wearing jewellery so they didn’t get anything from her. But all of them fell down on the front step running after each other.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“How did they gain access into the home?”

Olive Arnold,
“Through the back door. The screen door, they bust the screen door lock and they came in. Nobody was in the first and second bedrooms back there and so they heard the TV here and they must have thought, the girls they saw them on the verandah, and they came from that way into my room right here.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“Miss Olive you’ve been living in the United States for 40 years. Two times a year you come back home for a visit. This was your first trip for 2009. You think you’ll be back?”

Olive Arnold,
“To be honest with you, not in a hurry. Not in a hurry.

When I was growing up in Belize we walked all over. Our biggest thing is a bicycle. We ride all over, we walk all over and nobody bothers us. But now you can’t even walk with a purse it seems like.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“And what is scary is that know they’ve gone one step further by entering your home.”

Olive Arnold,
“That’s the truth, that’s the truth.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“Where do you get your bravery from? You’re 72 years old, you are confronted by an armed individual but yet you refuse to give up.”

Olive Arnold,
“We don’t give up. No, we don’t give up. If you will kill me then you’ll kill me but you won’t come into my house and tell me to close my mouth. I won’t. I am not going to do it. So if you are ready to shoot, go ahead and shoot. But when I finished scream he ran out though.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“How long you plan to stay in Belize?”

Olive Arnold,
“Well I have a return ticket on the 19th and it can’t come fast enough. I’ll be gone.”

The pair of armed burglars did not wear masks and 7News understands that at least one was able to be identified and the police now have two men in custody who they consider to be strong suspects.