College Junior Mortified After Discovering A 30-Year-Old Criminal Discreetly Living In Her Dorm Room Closet

The student initially suspected that her room might be haunted after noticing that some of her clothes were missing

Ayoub

• Published in Interesting
• August 9, 2020

Hearing strange noises and wondering where your clothes keep vanishing is something this student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro started getting used to. The student initially brushed it off by blaming these strange occurrences on a ghost, however, as it turns out, there was nothing paranormal about what was happening to her because she eventually discovered a 30-year-old man with a criminal record living in her closet.

The student, who chose to identify herself as Maddie, would often hear strange noises when she would come home to her campus-adjacent apartment. Maddie and her friends would often joke that her room was haunted by ghosts.

Maddie never made a big deal out of this until she came home on Saturday, Feb. 2, and heard the same rattling sounds coming out of her closet. The student initially thought that a raccoon managed to sneak into her room, so she held the door shut and asked, “who’s there?” To her surprise, someone actually answered.

30-year-old Andrew Swofford, 2019.

“I just hear rattling in my closet,” Maddie reported. “It sounded like a raccoon in my closet. I’m like ‘who’s there?’ And somebody answers me. He’s like ‘oh my name is Drew.’ I open the door and he’s in there, wearing all of my clothes. My socks. My shoes. And he has a book bag full of my clothes.”

Maddie immediately called her boyfriend and tried to maintain a conversation with the strange man, who was surprising neither violent nor aggressive with her, to keep him distracted and avoid a potential confrontation.

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro campus

“He tries on my hat. He goes in the bathroom and looks in the mirror and then is like, ‘you’re really pretty, can I give you a hug?” Maddie recalled. “But he never touched me.”

WFMY-TV reported that the 30-year-old fled when Maddie’s boyfriend arrived. The police shorty found him and arrested him at a local gas station.

The man was identified as Andrew Swofford and he was charged with misdemeanor breaking and entering. His past offenses included identity theft and larceny and he was previously locked up in Guilford County and held under a $26,000 bond on 14 felony charges.

According to the Greensboro News and Record, Swofford is facing various additional charges from past incidents, which include felony breaking and entering, delaying or obstructing a police officer, failure to appear, resist, and possession of stolen goods.

Maddie and her roommate became alarmed after the incident and started doubting the overall security of their living quarters, especially since similar incidents happened in the past when unfamiliar men were found casually hanging out in their living room.

“There was two guys in the living room,” said Maddie, referring to an incident that happened in December. The locks were changed once the strange men left the home, but the leasing office failed to file a police report after that. 

These two incidents made Maddie and her roommate increasingly hesitant to continue living in their current home. They still couldn't figure out how their apartment kept getting broken into despite the fact that their doors are always locked and no visible break-in damages have ever been found.

“Last night I did not feel safe. I slept with my roommate in her bed,” said Maddie. “I can’t stay here. My closet, it stinks. Every time I go in (my room) there’s a bad vibe. I’m just ready to leave.”

Following this incident, the student chose to move into a new apartment building in a different part of town.

“I’m leaving tonight, yeah,” she said. “Just signed a lease for a new apartment.”

Ayoub