Armed 86-Year-Old Woman Delivers One of the Best Interviews of the Year After Standing up to Burglar

A burglar got more of a fight than she expected after a super tough 86-year-old would-be victim confronted her with a handgun. Though she was unable to hit the home intruder with the one shot she fired, the elderly woman engaged in a struggle with the burglar and refused to let go of her gun.

"I told different people, if I ever catch 'em, I mean to kill 'em," Louise Howard told WCYB-TV. In other words, the burglar should be thankful she's still alive.

The incident occurred on Friday afternoon and Howard was forced to defend her home and her life from a female burglar who broke the glass on her door with a wrench and forced her way into her Tennessee home.

"I was in shock. I didn't know what she was going to do to me," she said.

The elderly woman retrieved her gun but before she could get a clean shot off, the burglar approached her and the two started to wrestle down the hall.

"She moved her hands sort of released me a bit. I moved over like that, and I was going to shoot her in the stomach, but she took her knee and hit my elbow," Howard recalled. The one shot she got off is still lodged inside her wall.

(WCYB-TV)

Howard, a repeat crime victim, certainly defended her life and put up a good fight, however, the robber still made off with her purse, which contained two sets of keys, some rings, a bank card and a checkbook. Nothing else was taken.

Howard also told WYCB-TV she was more concerned for her cat than she was for herself, which is partly why she refused to back down.

"I guess I'd give my life that cat I love him so," she said.

Hawkins County Sheriff Ronnie Lawson said the woman did the right thing defending herself with her firearm.

"All indications [were] the intruder, the female, had a wrench. It was what she used to break the window of the door so she could've defended herself," he said.