Gwinnett County

Metro Atlanta woman finds wanted fugitive hiding in her home

ROSWELL, Ga. — Channel 2 Action News is hearing the startling story of a woman who found a wanted bank robber asleep in her home in the middle of the night.

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Channel 2′s Tom Regan was live in Mountain Park, where Gwynne Ketcham had been following the story of the massive search for suspected bank robber James Raborn for days.

Raborn was accused of robbing a Roswell bank, leading police on a chase and crashing his truck before running from the scene into a nearby neighborhood.

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Roswell police said that while Ketcham was away early Wednesday, Raborn broke into her home through a window and hid in a home office. Ketcham came home and went to bed unaware that there was a fugitive inside her home.

Around midnight, she heard a noise and went to go check on her cats in her husband’s office. But when she tried to open the door, it was blocked.

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“I reached in and turned on the light and saw his legs, turned off the light and left,” Ketcham said. “Something you never expect to see in your house.”

Ketcham said her immediate response was to get out of the house. She went to her garage and called the police. Right around that time, officers arrived at her house. They had traced messages that the suspect had sent from Ketcham’s house.

“They discovered he used a computer in my house, and they had gotten a ping from that and the IP (address) led them to determine the address,” Ketcham said.

Ketcham said she thinks the suspect fell asleep on the floor and was rudely awakened to find cops placing him in handcuffs.

Altogether, Ketcham was in the home with him for about five hours.

“I have a tremendous amount of relief and so much admiration for the Roswell police department and what they did,” Ketcham said.

Both Raborn and a woman he was with have been arrested in connection with the bank robbery. They are also suspects in other armed robberies in the metro Atlanta area.