How viral Wordle game saved US woman, 80, who was held hostage for 21 hours
- Police rescued Denyse Holt from a naked man armed with scissors after she failed to text her daughter about her daily score on the online puzzle
- She had spent most of the ordeal barricaded inside her basement bathroom and unable to communicate with the outside world
Police rescued an 80-year-old US woman who was held hostage in her home for nearly 21 hours by a naked man with scissors, and officers checked on the woman in part because she could not text one of her daughters her daily Wordle score during the ordeal.
Denyse Holt and her oldest daughter, Meredith Holt-Caldwell, told reporters that Holt woke up about 1am on Sunday to the sight of the naked and bloody man in her Lincolnwood home in the Chicago suburbs.
Holt said the man threatened her life. Ultimately, after grabbing two knives from the kitchen, Holt said the man led her to a bathroom in the basement, barricading her inside using a chair for the next 17 hours.
“I was trying to survive, that’s all,” Holt told WBBM-TV.
During that time, she could not communicate with the outside world or update her daughter as she usually does about her score on the popular online word game. And Holt-Caldwell, who lives in Seattle, became worried that her mother was not reading her texts or updating her about Wordle.
