HIGH-STAKES WORDPLAY

80-Year-Old’s Missing Wordle Alerts Daughter to Naked Intruder Armed With Scissors

“I didn’t send my older daughter a Wordle in the morning. And that was disconcerting to her,” Denyse Holt said.

When a naked man armed with scissors broke into an 80-year-old’s home and held her hostage for 17 hours, her daughter across the country became suspicious something was wrong for a surprising reason: Wordle. Denyse Holt told CBS Chicago, “I didn’t send my older daughter a Wordle in the morning. And that was disconcerting to her.” Holt was allegedly held captive by an armed, bloody man, James H. Davis III, 32, who forced her to take a bath with him and stay with him in total darkness in a barricaded basement. “I didn’t think I was going to live,” Holt said. Davis had picked up knives from her kitchen, she added. Meredith Holt-Caldwell said she noticed her mother wasn’t reading her texts, either. She called police to perform a wellness check the morning of Feb. 6, which ended in a lengthy standoff with Davis. He is charged with home invasion with a dangerous weapon, aggravated kidnapping while armed, and aggravated assault, all felonies. Holt escaped the ordeal unharmed.