Fearless 89-Year-Old Grandmother Helps Police Nab Knife-Wielding Criminal: ‘I Haven’t Lived This Long By Being A Wimp’

An 89-year-old woman is being celebrated across the internet for her bravery and quick thinking, which helped Dallas Police nab a criminal on a violent spree, according to ABC’s Dallas affiliate.

Mili Carter, a Dallas resident, was in her apartment when she heard someone knocking on her back door. Thinking that it was one of her neighbors, the 89-year-old woman opened the door to find a knife-wielding man attempting to gain entry into the apartment.

This man, the police later revealed, was Maxxim Elliot Bedford, 26, who had arrived at Mili’s apartment after a series of failed carjacking attempts.

Being pursued by the police for a “disturbance” call on a freeway, Bedford attempted to carjack a victim at knife-point. After being unsuccessful on his first couple of attempts, Bedford finally managed to get away from the police by driving off in a car.

Hoping to evade the police, the 26-year-old Dallas man entered Mili’s apartment and ordered her to do what she was being told.

The 89-year-old woman was told to take him to the laundry room because he wanted to change clothes, but Mili instead ordered Bedford to drop the knife. When asked by a reporter if she wasn’t scared during the ordeal, she shrugged off the question.

“No, I don’t get scared so easily,” said the 89-year-old grandmother, who lives with her two dogs in a suburban Dallas apartment.

According to Dallas News, the elderly woman managed to escape by running out of the front door as soon as her intruder turned away from her. Having locked Bedford inside the apartment, the 89-year-old woman then called 911.

In the ensuing few minutes, a SWAT team surrounded Mili Carter’s apartment while Bedford barricaded himself inside one of the bathrooms in the house. After a tense three-hour standoff with the Dallas Police, during which the 26-year-old fugitive told officers that he was in the possession of a gun, he was apprehended by the police.

When police officers finally kicked in the bathroom door, they found Bedford holding a hair straightener instead of a gun. He was then tasered and taken to the Dallas County Jail.

Court documents revealed that the Dallas man was charged with burglary, criminal mischief, and three counts of aggravated robbery.

While police said the brief hostage-situation would have been difficult for Mili, the 89-year-old herself seemed pretty unfazed by the ordeal. She told reporters that she was always in control of the situation, and even tried making Bedford realize the severity of his actions.

“I’ve lived this long,” Carter told WFAA. “How do you think I got there? Not by being a wimp.”

When the news of the 89-year-old woman helping police nab a serial criminal broke out on the internet, people sang her praises on social media. While many were quick to chastise Bedford for his stupidity and reckless behavior, others said that they could not believe that Mili Carter managed to have her wits about her under such a distressing situation.

For the grandmother herself, who raised seven children, the encounter with Bedford could have only elicited one response from her, and that was to deal with the situation in a controlled way.

“I reared three boys and four daughters. You don’t show fear,” said the 89-year-old, and she couldn’t have been closer to the truth.

[Photo by Mike Stone/Getty Images]