A California mother and father experienced every parent’s worst nightmare when they heard a noise coming from their 5-year-old daughter’s bedroom and found a sex offender standing in the little girl’s room while she was sleeping. That’s when mom and dad flew into action.
Daniel Diaz, a 39-year-old registered sex offender, is accused of breaking into a Grayson, California, home around 5 a.m. on a Tuesday morning and entering a 5-year-old girl’s bedroom while she was sleeping, according to ABC 12. Sadly, it wasn’t the family’s first encounter with the criminal, who had reportedly harassed the family throughout the night.
According to Martha Zepeda and her older daughter, Ceci Ramirez, Daniel Diaz was first spotted outside their home, looking through their windows and touching himself before he was found inside the 5-year-old’s bedroom, CBS 13 Sacramento reported.
“He went and knocked the door, he tried to open the door, peeking through the window, trying to see, and he was showing his private parts around the windows,” Ramirez said, translating for her mother as she recalled what had happened. He repeatedly said, “I love you,” as he touched himself, according to Ramirez, the NY Post reported.
After spotting the pervert prowling around outside their home and looking in their windows while “grabbing his private parts,” Ramirez’s father warned the man — later identified as Daniel Diaz by the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office — to leave. The father then lost sight of the man as he walked around the outside of the house, according to the family, until they heard a loud noise come from their 5-year-old daughter’s bedroom, KTVU reported.
Diaz had allegedly removed a screen from a window to the girl’s room and tossed it to the ground before crawling into the home and making a huge mistake. “The man turned on the lights and that’s when my sister woke up and she got scared,” Ramirez recalled. Hearing a loud noise coming from the young girl’s bedroom, the child’s father rushed in to find Diaz in his daughter’s bedroom. The dad quickly tackled the man before pulling him out of the house, according to the family.
A security camera then captured footage of the two men outside as Ramirez’s father wrestled Diaz to the ground, pinned him down, and grabbed the duct tape. Diaz was subdued by the mother and father, who duct-taped the registered sex offender, called 911, and held him as they waited for authorities to arrive. Daniel Diaz was arrested outside the home and hit with charges that include child endangerment, home invasion, and peeping and prowling.
Although the children are fine, they were both left shaken and scared following the ordeal. “I was pretty scared because I thought the man would’ve taken and kidnapped her,” Ramirez said, and her fears were definitely justified. According to the Megan’s Law website, Diaz was convicted of assault with intent to commit rape in 2009. He was later released in 2018.
The family isn’t the only ones who were shaken up by the ordeal. The incident left others in the neighborhood disturbed and frightened as well. “We’re girls and we didn’t know if it was going to happen to us,” A next-door neighbor who only gave her first name, Erica, said, admitting that she is also concerned. “It could’ve been us,” she added.
Although Ramirez also admitted that she feels like she’s not safe after the intense and disturbing morning, she’s proud of her father for protecting their family, as she should be. We shudder to think what might have happened if this fearless father hadn’t captured the criminal when he did. Thanks to his heroic efforts and some duct-tape, however, this predator is once again off the streets and behind bars, where he belongs — and the rest of us are reminded how important it is to ensure your windows are locked.
