Man Films Terrifying Moment Neighbor Chops Down Front Door With Machete
Twain Thomas was sentenced to 15 years in prison last week after chopping down his neighbor's front door last February with a machete, apparently attempting to kill. The neighbor, James Cvengros, filmed the break-in and stopped Thomas by shooting him three times in the chest. "I know they were terrified," Thomas, 54, said in his sentencing.
Thomas broke into the apartments of two of his neighbors last February in Pocatello, Idaho, with a large machete, the Idaho State Journal reports. Thomas first hacked through the door of another resident on his floor. After the woman living in the apartment managed to chase him off, Thomas went to floor below and began chopping away at the door of Cvengros and his girlfriend's apartment.
In the video Cvengros recorded, you can see Thomas cut his way through the door and Cvengros threatening to shoot before shots can be heard. The video cuts off after Cvengros fires, but the audio continues. The footage was played during Thomas' sentencing hearing last week.
"If he hadn't been shot at that time, then we would be looking at a murder case, not an attempted murder case," Cvengros told KIDK.
Last February's incident was apparently not Cvengros' first run-in with Thomas: he told the Idaho State Journal that his upstairs neighbor kicked in his front door after complaining that their music was too loud. That incident, Cvengros told the paper, was what propelled him to buy the gun he would later use to shoot Thomas.
Mark Corgiat, Thomas' neuropsychologist, testified that his patient—a military veteran—suffers from PTSD and frontal lobe damage from a car accident he was in as a teen.
"His fight-or-flight is constantly on overdrive," Corgiat said in court.
Thomas pled guilty to one count of second degree attempted murder and aggravated assault; he was sentenced to five years fixed and 10 years indeterminate.
