Marrujo has a black belt in Jiu Jitsu and 26 years of hard training. But the intruder Donald Robert Prestwood didn’t know this. He works as a handyman for some of the residents.
He knew better not to mess with the woman and backed away when she pulled out the bat. “I was aiming at his head, and he backed off and said, ‘No Miss Kitty, no Miss Kitty, I’m not gonna hurt you,‘” Marruja said. “And I said, ‘Get the F out of my apartment right now.” [1]
It was at that moment when Prestwood knew he F up. He left and went into the first-floor apartment of Marrujo’s good friend, 81-year-old Elizabeth McCray, who requires a wheelchair.
Marrujo heard her scream and rushed to help her friend. She forgot her bat, but all she needed was her Ninja skills to take down the intruder.
She found him standing over McCray, beating her in a pitch dark room. She tried to trip Prestwood but ended up on the floor while he used his legs to pin McCray down.
“He lifted up and tried to twist my hand, but at the same time, I twisted his and turned it around real fast and he was saying, ‘You’re hurting me, you’re hurting me,’” Marrujo explained. “And I said, ‘I don’t care. I don’t care what happens to you. You had no right to hurt an elderly person.’” [3]
Before she had arrived to the rescue, McCray said Prestwood had grabbed her, shook her, and she fell to the floor. Marrujo had called the cops and arrived to save her just in time. “Jesus was here and gave her power,” McCray said. “I wouldn’t think a little lady would have the power to do this.”
McCray was taken to the hospital for her injuries but she was released the next day. “I didn’t expect that little lady would be that brave,” McCray said of her friend. “I said, ‘Could you be careful, he’s gonna kill us.’ She said, ‘Not tonight.’” Marrujo said Prestwood had luck because she had forgotten her bat. Otherwise she would have busted his kneecaps