Mother talks about home-invasion nightmare

March 10, 2006

MARY AMES\Frontiersman reporter

HOUSTON - At about 6 a.m. Feb. 23, Jeff Munholland awoke and felt a large hunting knife pressed to his throat by a ski-masked man, as the familiar voice of another masked man shouted, &#8220Where's your money? I know you have money.”

The intruder with the familiar voice, a tall man with a lazy eye, was pouring gasoline over Munholland's 6-year-old son as the child slept on his stomach in a bed next to his parents'.

Mandy Munholland, Jeff's wife, awoke almost immediately. &#8220He dumped almost a whole can of gasoline on my son and I was begging, ‘Please no, please no,'” she said Monday.

&#8220I went to grab our son and he said that he would kill him right now. He took the rest of the gas and threw some in my face. It went in my mouth, in my eyes and up my nose. Then he threw the rest of it on my baby and doused my husband with it. He stepped back to strike a match. It should have sparked easily, but it didn't. Only the good Lord kept it from sparking.”

Besides the older boy, the Munhollands' 9-month-old son was in their bedroom, and Mandy's grandmother, Mercella Padie, was in another bedroom in the back of the house.

At that point, Jeff Munholland told the intruders his wallet was nearby and the man with the knife reached to get it, easing up the pressure on the knife, she said.

&#8220That's when my husband kicked him in the face, knocking him into the other guy, and they both went down,” Mandy said. &#8220He was fighting for his life, saying, ‘Grandma, call 911.' My grandma wheeled around the corner with the phone saying the policeman was on Nichols Drive, on his way. The two guys got up and ran out. My husband ran after them in just his pajamas.”

Jeff Munholland, who works as a personal-care attendant for the elderly, got stabbed in his left arm by the elbow while fighting off the men.

He found two tires slashed on the family's 1998 Oldsmobile Cutlass, making a chase impossible, she said.

Normally, the door would have been locked.

But that morning, Padie had offered to let the couple sleep in while she took their 9-year-old daughter to school, Mandy said.

The normal house rule is that the doors are locked while people are sleeping, but Padie was just stopping back at the house for a minute, a quick in-and-out before she went off to work, she said.

The intruders sped away in an older dark-blue Ford Explorer, but put it in a ditch, according to John Ryshek, Houston's chief of police.

The men went to a neighbor's house and asked for help, but fled on foot when they saw Ryshek's cruiser go by, he said.

After impounding the Ford, Ryshek determined he wanted to talk to Matthew Marr, 22, and Barret Ray, 26.

Munholland said she felt they were set up for the home invasion the night before by a woman she'd thought of as a friend, Marr's girlfriend.

&#8220Stephanie and I were pregnant together,” Mandy said, adding that she didn't know the last name of Marr's girlfriend.

&#8220We did Lamaze classes together. But we hadn't seen her in a while. She called the day before and said, how about if she comes over and we let the babies play together. So that night she and Matt came over for about an hour. She was asking an awful lot of questions about tax returns, like, how much did we get back. I told her that was for me to know and for her not to know. It's personal, you know? But I did tell her we were getting ready to buy a house around the corner. But why would they assume we had that amount of money here?”

The Munhollands suspected Marr was the masked man who threw the gasoline because they recognized his voice, she said, and his lazy eye.

But when they saw the Explorer in the ditch, they knew.

Marr and his girlfriend drove the same SUV with the bashed-in driver's side over to their house the previous night when they and their 11-month-old baby girl visited.

Ray wasn't a complete stranger to the couple, either.

&#8220My husband did gutters for Barret's uncle's construction company a long time ago,” Munholland said. &#8220So I knew of him. Plus he was a friend of a good friend of ours. We went to a job site once in the summer, and I recognized a tattoo on his arm from then.”

The men got away with $2,000 the couple planned to use as a down payment on a house.

Since the attack, the family is going to church and working at getting through the trauma through their faith, Mandy said

&#8220We knew the good Lord was with us that day, and will help us to heal, ” Mandy Munholland said. &#8220As much as we hate them, we have to pray for them and their families.

&#8220It ticks us off. They destroyed our lives and hopes and dreams, but they're going to get it in the end, if not in this lifetime then the next.”

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.