14-year-old: Burglar walked by our hiding place several times during terrifying Fresno home invasion

Just after 9 a.m. Thursday, a 14-year-old Fresno girl was jolted awake when her 8-year-old sister ran into her bedroom. “There’s a man in our backyard,” the younger sibling said.

The 14-year-old crept to the single-story Tower District home’s back door and peeked out the window — just as a skinny, unfamiliar Hispanic man approached.

“I grabbed my sister and the tablet (computer) and we ran into the bathroom,” said Hailey, whose family asked Friday that their last name not be used. “I could hear him move through the house and into our computer room — it sounded like he was breaking stuff.”

Hailey used the Google Hangout app to contact Jennifer Hedrick, her father’s girlfriend. She had wanted to call 911, but she only had the tablet — not a working phone. Their father had left for work earlier that day.

“My first thought was: If this is a joke, I am going to kill you, Hailey,” Hedrick said with a short laugh. “But I didn’t care. As soon as she said someone was in the house, I was gone. I didn’t even lock my door.”

Hedrick said she received the first message from the girls at 9:22 a.m. She immediately called 911, and stayed on the line with a dispatcher as her truck screamed its way across town.

“I made it from my house to yours in four minutes — that’s pretty impressive,” she said to Hailey, who nodded. “The dispatcher was telling me to text the girls things while I was on the freeway before she said, ‘Wait, don’t text and drive.’”

“But I didn’t care,” Hedrick continued. “I’ll take the ticket.”

Hedrick said she had only just left the house an hour before the break-in. She has children of her own to pick up, and she was trying to give the girls some time to sleep in before she came back to pick them up, too.

From around 9:15 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., the girls sat behind a locked bathroom door and struggled to keep as still and quiet as possible.

“She didn’t cry,” Hailey said of her sister. “I was so proud of her. I think we were both just in a state of shock.”

“But I can’t believe he didn’t hear us,” she added. “It was only 15 or 20 minutes, but it felt like forever.”

Hailey said the burglar walked past the bathroom door several times during the robbery, but he never tried to open it.

By 9:30 a.m., dozens of Fresno police officers had surrounded the home. They had arrived within minutes after a code three alarm — meaning a major crime is in progress — went out.

Hedrick pulled up to the home as police were about to force their way in. She gave them a key.

Officers entered through the front door and immediately yelled for the girls to stay in the bathroom. The burglar, who had spent 15 minutes filling several backpacks with electronics, clothes and about $400 in cash, ran out the back door. He was immediately tackled and arrested by an officer positioned in the backyard. Police identified him as Jose Carlos Palomares, 23.

Police believe he had no idea the two girls were in the home at any point during the robbery.

Palomares also had a Sony PlayStation 4 video game console and various camera parts that did not belong to Hailey’s family in his possession, police said. They are investigating whether he was involved in other robberies in the area.

The breaking sound that Hailey heard as she ushered her sister into the bathroom was apparently Palomares pushing in a window air-conditioning unit before climbing into the house. The home sustained no damage other than that, and all of the family’s stolen property was recovered.

Hailey said her sense of security in the family home was not damaged, either.

“I’m not really worried about being home alone,” she said. “It was just bad luck that he chose our house.”

Still, Hedrick packed the girls into her truck early Friday afternoon.

“It’s the last few days of summer vacation,” Hedrick said. “I just wanted to grab them and let them have some fun before school starts.”

This story was originally published August 7, 2015 at 5:38 PM with the headline "14-year-old: Burglar walked by our hiding place several times during terrifying Fresno home invasion."