74-year-old Etolia Fox, a retired housekeeper at La Salle University, says it was about 10:00 a.m. that he heard a window breaking in the kitchen.
"So I came out and that's when they came out of the front room with guns and said, 'Get down on the floor!' So I laid down," Fox said.
Fox, a diabetic, says two men wearing scarves over their faces and armed with handguns ransacked his row home on the 4700 block of Marvine Street in the Logan section of Philadelphia.
They bound his wrists, feet, and mouth with duct tape.
"I kept trying to get out, but I couldn't get loose," Fox said.
For over six hours Fox laid in a second floor hallway struggling, but not able to free himself until his wife got home.
"I was frightened, but there was no reason for them to hurt me 'cause I was doing what they wanted me to do," Fox said.
Police say they made off with about $160 in cash, a flat screen TV, a computer and other items.
Meanwhile, throughout his terrifying ordeal, Fox just kept hoping and praying he would be okay.
"Sometimes you do as they ask and they still hurt you," Fox said.
Fox's wife came home from work around 4:30 p.m. to find him tied up on the floor.
Police are questioning witnesses on the block in the brazen mid-morning home invasion.
"Very brazen, brutal crime to not only point loaded guns at a 74-year-old resident, to tie him up, wrists, ankles and his mouth," Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small said.
Police have only vague descriptions of the two men. They are hoping someone may have seen them trying to cart off the flat screen TV and other items from the home.
Anyone with information on this case is asked to call police.
