Arkansas family finds stranger living in basement for 3 days

A family in Arkansas discovered a stranger had been living in their basement after noticing items mysteriously going missing from their home.

Dutch Hoggatt of Searcy said that he first suspected something was off when he noticed a pair of shoes he normally leaves near the home’s back door were gone.

On April 29, the family began searching the house when his wife, Sharon Hoggatt, entered a storage closet beneath the basement stairs.

"She went further into the closet, and that’s when I saw her eyes get really big. She starts to back out and says, 'There’s someone in there. I see their leg or their jeans or something,'" son-in-law Mark Gregory said. 

The man, 41-year-old Preston Landis, told the family he was homeless and stepped out as deputies from the White County Sheriff’s Office arrived.

According to authorities, Landis first arrived on April 27, living in the Hoggatts’ crawl space before moving to the basement the next day, where he created a makeshift bed in a supply closet.

The sheriff’s office charged him with residential burglary and theft of property, with his bond set at $15,000.


(Photo: White Co. Sheriff's office)