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Lake City Woman Wakes Up To Find Stranger In Bed, Deputies Arrest Him

"I don’t like it at all. It’s way too close to home."

An unsettling crime in a Missaukee County neighborhood.

Deputies say this man went into a woman’s home and crawled into bed with her.

The undersheriff says the man started touching her.

That’s when she woke up and chased him out.

Deputies in Grand Traverse County say they arrested Scott Tombaugh from Lake City weeks later and brought him back to Missaukee County.

9&10’s Cody Boyer and photojournalist Derrick Larr have more details on the unsettling case.

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Our homes are supposed to be a safe and comfortable place.

So when deputies say a woman woke up to find a strange man touching her, it’s left many feeling unsettled.

“As the old saying goes, everyone’s home is their castle and you like to feel safe in your home,” says Undersheriff Wil Yancer, Missaukee County Sheriff’s Office.

Yancer says it happened in the early morning hours of March 1.

Scott Tombaugh was not the man the victim expected to come through her door.

“The victim was expecting her boyfriend to come home,” Yancer says. “He worked a late shift so she had actually gotten up and unlocked the door. [Tombaugh], 2:30 in the morning, had wandered into the wrong house and got into the wrong bed and had reached out and touched this woman."

She demanded Tombaugh leave.

“She woke up,” Yancer says. “She confronted this male individual that she was familiar with from just around different businesses in Lake City but doesn’t really know him."

Deputies arrested Tombaugh last weekend at his job at Munson in Traverse City.

The Lake City neighborhood where it happened remains vigilant.

“I had to put extra locks on the doors,” says Tina Sundell, a concerned grandmother in the neighborhood.

Tina lives blocks away.

“It’s not something you imagine,” Sundell says. “You don’t feel safe in your own home that way. When people are walking into the neighbor’s."

She says locks on doors help comfort her, preventing against similar situations.

“It brings anxiety to you,” Sundell says. “I have to lock everything up tight so that nobody takes the children. It scares me."

Scott Tombaugh faces two charges: 1st degree home invasion and 4th degree criminal sexual conduct.

If convicted, he could spend more than two decades in prison.

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