Actress Flees on to Roof Pursued By Homeless Intruder

Actress Flees on to Roof Pursued By Homeless Intruder Actress Melora Rivera fled on to the roof of her home after an intruder broke in. She hid out as the man searched for her before police arrived at her home in Venice, Los Angeles. EXCLUSIVE - 'I'm stuck on a roof with no pants on, six cops pointing their guns at me. It was crazy': Woman relives terrifying moment intruder chased her from her bed It was the shocking photograph that went viral on Thursday. Melora Rivera cowered, half-naked, under the eaves on her roof as an intruder lurked, looking for her just yards away. Now Melora has spoken to MailOnline about the terrifying ordeal and shared the photographs that she took as she desperately waited for rescue. The dramatic pictures show cops with their guns drawn moving in on the house in Venice, California as the disturbed transient searched for the horrified TV writer. Rivera, 30 - who is still reeling from the home invasion on Wednesday morning - told MailOnline: 'I felt like I was becoming the plot to a horror movie, it was terrifying, all my instincts told me I had to get out of there. 'This guy had kicked my front door in, chased me up to my bedroom and followed me out the window on to the roof, all I could do was hide. 'If the police hadn't got there when they did, who knows what could have happened. I thought I might have to jump off the roof. My mind keeps playing over and over all the possible ways this could have played out.' Rivera - who only moved in to the rented property three weeks ago - was fast asleep when the intruder first started scoping the house at 8.15am. The New Yorker was woken by someone jiggling the knob to her front door and knocking. She said: 'My bedroom is in the loft and there’s a ladder coming up from near the front door so the sound woke me up. I looked at my phone and the few people it could have been hadn't texted to say they were coming round. 'I hesitated for a second and eventually I come down and look out of the window and see the guy walking away, he was talking to himself, it sounded like he was commenting on a car parked in the street.' Rivera says that as a single woman she has learnt not to advertise the fact you're home alone. 'I wasn't going to shout after him and ask him what he wanted. I just let him keep going,' she said. Shrugging off the visit Rivera contemplated taking a shower ready for work – but instead she decided to go back to bed. 'It’s a worrying thought because the guy came back 15 minutes later and I could have been taking a shower,' she said. 'There's no lock on the bathroom door and the window is way too small to climb through, he could have come straight in to get me. I would have been trapped like a scene in Psycho. 'But luckily I was lazy that morning and decided to go back to bed to get a little more sleep. My laziness may have helped save my life.' Fifteen minutes the intruder was back and this time he meant business. He started ramming the door with his shoulder. 'I looked down from my bedroom and could see the door buckling with every charge,' said an animated Rivera. 'It seemed relentless, this guy was going to carry on until he got in, I was scared. I called 911 and told them someone was trying to break in my house. 'I was giving them my address when a big chunk of my door broke inwards and I saw the guy's hand coming inside to unlock it.' Rivera decided her best plan was to escape. Her bedroom is in the eaves of the house meaning her windows are low down. She slid back the glass door of one of the windows and kicked the screen panel out. ‘I literally crawled through the window and as the intruder steps one foot in my house, I step one foot on the roof,' she said. 'But he didn't stop there. He came up the steps to my bedroom and as I’m crawling around the roof I see his head pop out through the window. The next thing he’s on the roof with me.' Fortunately a passer-by had seen the intruder – since identified as mentally ill Christian Hicks aged 24 – kicking in Rivera's front door. He flagged down a passing squad car and the officers descended on the property, their guns drawn screaming at the intruder to come down. The whole time Rivera was on the phone to a 911 dispatcher. 'The dispatcher tried to keep me calm, she kept saying "the police have an eye on the suspect, he's on the roof," I was like "I know, I'm on the roof too mam, that's the problem," it was nerve-




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