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SPRING HILL - Fran Greifenberger wandered across the street wearing flip-flops, shorts, a T-shirt and a gun.
She was washing her car in her driveway when she heard a smash. Her neighbors across the street had moved to an Army base in Kansas and she knew their house was vacant. She called 911.
Greifenberger walked to the back of the home at 13371 Linden Drive and noticed the glass in the sliding door was reduced to piles of shards on the floor. She pulled the gun out of her waistband and quietly entered the house.
She had her .32-caliber Beretta in her right hand and encountered the first suspect in the living room.
She screamed at him and forced him into the master bedroom where the other two boys were wreaking havoc. One had a baseball bat, one a hammer and the other a screwdriver, Greifenberger said. She ordered all of them to lie down on the floor.
One of them was shaking and about to cry, she said. The other said he needed to go to the bathroom.
"I don't care," she told him.
Greifenberger, 50, is a former New York City police officer. She worked for the department from 1982-88 before a knee injury forced her out, she said.
She's currently employed with the county. She administers breathalyzers to DUI suspects. She has a concealed weapons permit, according to the arrest report.
When she first encountered the teens, she pointed the gun downward at an angle, but didn't point it directly at them, she said.
"I knew they were juveniles," she said. "I wasn't going to shoot them."
One of the suspects is 13 years old and the other two are 14. Their names are not being released.
"Oh, they dropped everything," she said of their reactions the moment they noticed a woman standing before them with a gun. "They were scared stiff."
Seconds earlier, the boys were carefree and enjoying a rush of excitement while they poked holes in the wall, broke mirrors and smashed closet doors, Greifenberger said.
"I heard them laughing and carrying on having a good ol' time," she recalled.
They weren't inside the house for long from the time Greifenberger heard the glass breaking to the time she confronted them, she said.
The damage was extensive. Only the laundry room was skipped during the vandalism bender, which deputies think was spread across two days.
One of the teens told authorities he and one of the other suspects broke into the house Monday and "broke everything they saw," according to the arrest report.
When they entered the home Tuesday afternoon, one of the suspects threw beer bottles at the walls and did further damage with a baseball bat, deputies said.
The other two were "throwing hammers at everything inside the residence," according to the report.
Greifenberger walked through the house Wednesday. There were the constant sounds of popping glass underneath her feet as she stepped from one room to another.
Mostly everything made of glass — from mirrors to sliding doors to windows — was broken.
The glass top stove and oven were smashed. The door to the kitchen cupboard was damaged. There was a hole in the bathroom window and a section of the shower was reduced to rubble.
The glass doors of the closets in one of the bedrooms were destroyed and the wall shelves in the same room were cracked in half.
Some of the walls in the living room and master bedroom were punctured and the light fixture in the dining room was broken.
More damage was done to the master bathroom, fireplace and a third bedroom.
The latter included a life-sized dollhouse that was made by the homeowner for his young daughter. It was not spared by the vandals.
"This house was immaculate," said Greifenberger, who is friends with her former neighbors. "It was left spotless. It was move-in ready."
While the boys remained on the ground face down, Greifenberger tucked the gun back into her shorts. She called 911 again to tell the dispatcher where she and the suspects were located inside the house.
Deputies arrived a few minutes later, she said.
The house is owned by Paul and Amiee Moon. They live at Fort Riley, Kan. The former enlisted in the U.S. Army in January and he is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq in June, his wife said.
Amiee Moon was contacted by phone. She used to be a teacher at Nature Coast Technical High School.
"I'm always surprised when I see how great some students can be and then see the bad from other kids," Moon said. "I also can't believe how sometimes parents stand behind them no matter what they do."
Greifenberger said the parents of two of the teens yelled at them. The mother of the third was more emotional about seeing her child being carted off to jail, she said.
The house was days away from being sold to a cash buyer via a short sale, Greifenberger said.
That was confirmed by Moon, who said there were at least three people interested in buying it.
She said she is still waiting on word from the Realtor and insurance company about the damage and whether the sale is in jeopardy. One of the prospective buyers is expected to look at the house today, she said.
Moon was relieved to learn the suspects had been caught in the act by her friend.
"She's an awesome lady," she said of her former neighbor.
Greifenberger said her career with the NYPD was cut short due to the knee injury she sustained while fighting with a suspect.
Walking into her neighbors' house to confront suspected burglars reminded her of what she often went through as a patrol officer more than 20 years earlier.
"It felt good," she said about disrupting Tuesday's alleged burglary. "I've still got it after all these years."