A woman was jolted awake early this morning by what sounded like a battering ram slamming into her Warwick Township house.

It was an intruder, bashing a redwood bench he found on the woman's deck against the back door of her Brookwood Drive home, just off Lititz Pike.

"I heard glass. I heard this pounding. I just wanted out," said the woman, who yanked open a window, crawled onto her second-story roof and tucked herself against the eaves to hide from the intruder.

Moments later, police caught the man, identified as Mark Lutz, who also broke into the woman's neighbor's home. They now are investigating whether he was involved in the triple murder over the weekend in adjacent Manheim Township.

Lancaster County District Attorney Donald Totaro said at press time that the two suburban police departments were working together but, "At this point in time, there is no evidence to suggest a connection exists between the two incidents."

The Warwick Township break-ins are the latest in a string of seemingly random, violent home and property invasions, which have resulted in four murders this month alone in the suburbs of Lancaster County.

Ray Diener, 65, was shot multiple times by intruders just outside the front door of his West Donegal Township home early this month. Tom and Lisa Haines and their 16-year-old son, Kevin, were stabbed to death in their Blossom Hill home over the weekend. Neither crime has been solved.

A police source said Lutz, whose last known address was in the 500 block of West Marion Street in Lititz, was nabbed outside the woman's Brookwood Drive home, north of Lititz.

An officer at the scene, who asked not to be named, said that Lutz started yelling, talking about dead people and saying that the people who did the Manheim Township killings also did the Warwick Township break-ins.

Lutz, who was not making sense at times, also said he needed help, the officer said.

As the investigation continues, local residents are feeling scared and shaken by the rash of crime.

Ross Fair, who lives across the street from the Brookwood Drive homes, said, "I don't think there is safety anymore."

Neighborhood resident John Snow, out walking today, said, "It's very difficult to believe, the depravity of some people who seemingly have no sense of right or wrong."

Lutz first broke into the home of Millard Eppig at 3 Brookwood Drive, police said. He used a broomstick to break a window at the home's rear French doors.

Lutz ran upstairs and barricaded himself in an unoccupied bedroom in the Eppig home. A neighbor saw the break-in and called police, who arrived minutes later.

To flee police, Lutz jumped out of the second-story window, landing, one officer said, on an air conditioning unit.

Bloody and injured, Lutz ran to the neighboring house.

The woman said she called 911 when she heard Lutz ramming the back of her house. She said either a dispatcher, or an officer she was connected to, talked to her during the incident.

"The fellow said, 'Stay with me, stay with me,'" she said.

The person asked her if she could get out of a window. She said she could, and did, saying "It was better out there than in here."

Police already had surrounded her home. More than 20 officers from Warwick Township and the surrounding area responded to the break-in.

Out on the roof, she saw an officer standing on the ground below. He urged her to jump, saying that he would catch her, but she was too frightened to do that.

Even after Lutz was caught, officers told the woman not to go back inside her house, because they did not know if someone else was inside.

A fire company truck came and she got off the roof and onto the ladder, she said.

"I'm a little scared," said the woman, who said the man left a blood trail throughout the downstairs of her home, as well as broken glass and a shattered back door.

She has deadbolts on her door. She had left her rear flood lights on overnight as a precaution. But still, she said, she was not safe.

She said she planned to stay with family or friends for a time.

Neighbor Mark Kiessling, who lives at 1 Brookwood Court, said he awoke to a commotion and heard officers yelling at Lutz.

"They were just telling him to get down, to stay where you are," Kiessling said.

"All you could hear was people screaming," he said.

Said Fair, "All I saw was cops coming down with guns on their shoulders."

Snow said, "When it's so close to your home, it makes you realize you need to be cautious and do all you can to prevent this ... but they'll still break in."
(Staff writer Janet Kelley contributed to this report).

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