Bodybuilding Grandma, 82, Beats Up Home Intruder: 'I Really Did a Number on That Man'

As the saying goes, age is but a number — and an 82-year-old grandmother proved that this week after beating up a man who tried to break into her home.

Willie Murphy heard a man pounding on the door of her Rochester, New York, home Thursday around 11 p.m. local time, she told local ABC affiliate WHAM.

The man yelled to Murphy that he needed an ambulance, calling out “I’m sick, I’m sick,” however, she didn’t open the door.

Murphy told the outlet that she called the police, but before they could arrive the suspect became agitated.

“I hear a loud noise,” she told WHAM. “I’m thinking, ‘What the heck was that?’ The young man is in my home. He broke the door.”

Little did the man know, he “picked the wrong house to break into,” said Murphy, an award-winning bodybuilder who hits the gym nearly every day.

“It’s kind of semi-dark and I’m alone, and I’m old. But guess what, I’m tough,” she added.
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Murphy grabbed as many household items as she could to take down the intruder, beginning with a table.

“I took that table and I went to working on him,” she told the outlet. “And guess what? The table broke.”

She didn’t stop there — Murphy continued to hit the man with the metal legs of the table and then was “jumping on him” until he was down on the ground.

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Trying to keep the man on the floor, Murphy grabbed a bottle of baby shampoo from her kitchen and squirted it in his face.

Finally, Murphy grabbed a broom and continued to hit the suspect with it until the intruder was ready to “get the heck out of there,” she told WHAM.

“I’m trying to help him get out of the house, but he’s too heavy. I can’t move him. He’s dead weight,” she said, explaining that the police arrived shortly after.

“So they come in,” she added to the outlet. “He’s laying down already because I had really did a number on that man. I’m serious.”
The man was transported in an ambulance upon the officer’s arrival.

The police were impressed with Murphy’s actions — applauding her on a job well done.
“Ms. Murphy standing shoulder to shoulder with Genesee Section Officers after an intruder attempted to break into her home. Ms. Murphy is tough as nails & fended off the intruder. Ms. Murphy standing with some of the officers that responded to her home,” the Rochester Police Department wrote on Twitter alongside a photo of the officers with Murphy.