Coming Home From Vacation, This Couple Find A Stranger In Their House And Says, 'This Is Not Your House'

Photo by Sizel C. on Unsplash

JAKARTA - Just imagine if it's happened to you. Panic, fear, or confusion will blend into one. When a stranger stays at your home and kicks you out.

This is a horror story experienced by Brittany and James Campbell. This event is commonly known as Phrogging, when an unknown stranger stays in someone's house unnoticed.

It happened a long time ago, September 20, 2019. But all of them were told again in the program "Phrogging: Hider in My House" as quoted from the New York Post, Monday, July 18.

The couple and their two young sons have been away from their home in Honolulu for about a week. A week later they returned and this is where all the terror began.

James tried to open his front door, but couldn't. A stranger was inside, pulling him shut.

“There was a man peeking through the door. He tried to hold it in and the guy said 'this isn't your house' very calmly," James said.

"They're lucky to be alive," said Jessica Everleth, the show's executive producer.

James then took the hammer for protection. Meanwhile, Brittany called 911. They did manage to drive this intruder from inside the house to the front yard.

"We saw him wearing my clothes. Things are getting crazier now," recalls James.

Police arrived and arrested the man, a 23-year-old man named Ezequiel Zayas.

If you think this story is over, you are wrong. The nightmare had just begun.

The inside of their house was a complete mess. Pots and pans are stacked on top of each other. In the living room, all of James' musical instruments had been removed. Their bedroom is a complete mess.

What they found next was far more terrifying.

Zayas had used one of their old laptops to record disturbing diary entries and details about the family.

"There are all these typed notes called 'Omnivore Exam: Rehabilitation for rat-like people'," James said on the show.

"That's when we realized this person had been in our house longer," said Brittany.

Brittany looked at the knife placed next to the computer. And she found a typed "manifesto" of gruesome plans for the Campbells - including surgeries such as "sexual reconstruction" and "hand transplants."

She also finds videos the intruders made on her computer, apparently while naked.

"This guy has been sitting naked in my chair - it's disgusting," she said on the series. "I just had a feeling of terror."

After his arrest, Zayas was charged with theft and released. Shortly thereafter, he was arrested again, this time for allegedly vandalizing a Buddhist temple.

In 2020, while in prison for the crime, Zayas is suspected of murdering a fellow inmate, 62-year-old Vance J. Grace.

The Campbells, meanwhile, are still recovering from their strange and terrible ordeal and have since moved from their home in Honolulu and far from Hawaii.

"This is an incident that has deeply affected us psychologically as a family," Brittany said.