‘I’m very lucky’: Wordle game helps save 80-year-old woman held hostage during home invasion

An elderly woman in Illinois may have survived a home invasion thanks to her love of the popular online game Wordle.

On Feb. 6, James H. Davis III, 32, broke into the Lincolnwood, Illinois, home of 80-year-old Denyse Holt and climbed into her bed with her, police said.

“I was in shock,” Holt told WBBM-TV of the bizarre incident. “I was trying to survive that’s all.”

Davis, who was naked and blood-covered as a result of allegedly breaking a window to get inside the residence, told Holt he would not “harm or molest” her, she recalled.

According to the octogenarian, Davis at first demanded she take a shower with him, but he then changed his mind and ordered her into the bath because he was feeling cold.

After Holt got into the tub with him in her nightgown, he allegedly dragged her around her house, disconnected her phones and took two knives from her kitchen. He then, she said, barricaded her in the home's basement for the next 17 hours.

“I didn’t think I was going to live,” Holt told the station.

Across the country in Seattle, Holt’s eldest daughter, Meredith Holt-Caldwell, noticed her mother wasn’t seeing text messages and failed to send her a Wordle game as she usually did every morning.

Loved ones contacted authorities in Lincolnwood to do a wellbeing check on Holt shortly before 10 p.m. A SWAT team took Davis into captivity after an hours-long standoff and rescued the elderly woman.

Police believe Davis may have mental issues, WBBM-TV reported. He was charged with home invasion with a dangerous weapon, aggravated kidnapping while armed with a dangerous weapon, and aggravated assault against a peace officer.

“I’m very lucky,” said Holt, who was not harmed during the bizarre ordeal.