A San Clemente, California, woman smashed her way into a Saint Paul apartment with a metal pipe on Sept. 26 and was restrained by neighbors until officers arrived, according to charges.
Mary Parker Brown, who was 27 at the time, faces charges of first-degree burglary, first-degree damage to property and possession of burglary or theft tools.
According to the complaint, Ramsey County Emergency 911 first received a call from an apartment in Saint Paul at about 5:30 p.m. Sept. 26. The caller reported that a former college acquaintance of her son was outside, knocking and refusing to leave. Officers responded but were unable to locate the acquaintance at that time.
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About an hour later, 911 received multiple calls from the same building reporting that someone had smashed the apartment windows with a pipe and climbed inside. Officers arrived and found a woman being restrained on the ground outside the building. She was identified as Brown.
A neighbor told officers she saw Brown pacing outside the windows and saying she needed to reach the apartment’s occupants. The neighbor became concerned and alerted the family. Several other neighbors reported seeing Brown use a metal pipe, or what one described as a crowbar, to break the windows and enter the apartment. Some neighbors provided video of Brown smashing the window.
The victim told officers she and her son heard two extremely loud sounds from the windows and ran to a neighbor’s home for help. The neighbor they fled to was one of those restraining Brown when officers arrived. He said he entered the apartment, called out to Brown and saw her drop a metal pipe on the floor as she came toward him from the second floor.
Officers observed and photographed shattered windows and broken glass. They recovered one metal pipe near the broken glass and a second pipe under the refrigerator, which the victim’s son identified as the one Brown had been seen carrying in the apartment.
In a Mirandized interview, Brown admitted knowing the victim’s son from school and said she had come to his home and “banged on his f****** door.” She told officers that when the family locked her out, “I smashed the window” with a wrench and entered the apartment, finding no one inside. Brown also made several nonsensical statements, including that she had been “chased here by all of humanity” and “forced” to come.
Building management estimated the cost to repair the broken windows as more than $2,000.
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Jurisdictional Context
Ramsey County encompasses Saint Paul and is served by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office. Felony cases are heard in the Second Judicial District at the Ramsey County Courthouse in downtown Saint Paul; Ramsey County Community Corrections operates the Ramsey County Correctional Facility in Maplewood.
