Sonya Deville has shared a harrowing, detailed account of the 2020 home invasion where a stalker broke into her house while she and fellow wrestler Mandy Rose were inside. Deville walked through the terrifying events of that night, from the moment her alarm went off to their eventual escape.
A Terrifying Night
Appearing on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Deville recounted the entire ordeal. She explained how she was awoken at 2:43 a.m. by her security alarm, initially thinking Mandy Rose had gone outside. After realizing Rose was asleep in the guest room, she went to investigate and came face-to-face with the intruder.
“I run to the living room by myself. I turn on all the lights… I go to the small one, and I peel back the curtain, and the door shut, but I’m just checking the lock. It’s locked. Sorry I missed a part. When I’m going to check the lock, I look up and the man is standing right at the door, as close as you are to me right now. So he has a black mask on, a black backpack, all black clothes. I’m looking at him, and I scream. ‘What the fck do you want?’… Then he advances towards the door… as soon as he advances, I run to grab Mandy to tell her ‘Holy sht, there’s someone in the house.’ We run out the garage door next to Mandy’s bedroom and take off in her car.”
“We Wouldn’t Have Made It”
Police arrived within three minutes and apprehended the man, who was waiting at the bottom of the stairs with a knife and pepper spray. He had been sending threatening messages for years and had been watching the two women through the windows that night. Deville stated that if any small detail had been different, the outcome could have been tragic.
“If one thing happened differently, like, had we slept on the couch? He had the door open, the doors right behind the couch. We would have both been maced before we could even wake up. Had I not set my alarm that night because I was being lazy and just went to sleep, which I’ve done many nights, we would be dead. Like one different move in any scenario, we wouldn’t have made it… I’m the luckiest person on the planet. I tell people all the time, and when I retell the story, people often have the opinion of, ‘Wow, you got really lucky.’ Because if one thing went differently, me, or Mandy, or both of us would not be here right now.”
The intruder, Phillip Thomas II, was sentenced in 2023 to 15 years in prison for the crimes of armed burglary, attempted armed kidnapping, aggravated stalking, and criminal mischief.
