Dogs alert family of burglar, mom chases suspect out of home

MESA, AZ - A single mother of three said her dogs helped save her family after a stranger broke into their Mesa home.

“Everything happened so fast. It was very scary. I feared for my daughters,” Elizabeth Mendez said.

Mendez said she woke up after hearing her three dogs barking and knew something was wrong.

“My dogs were my heroes. My dogs saved us because they were barking,” Mendez said.

Mendez said she panicked after someone broke into her home near Main Street and Country Club Drive around 5 a.m. Thursday.

“It's scary to just wake up in the morning and see someone that you don't even know inside your house,” Mendez said.

Immediately, Mendez said she worried about the safety of her three daughters, ages 9, 10 and 14.

“As soon as I saw the guy my instinct of a mother just reacted to like protect my children,” she said.

Her 14-year-old daughter called 911, but reluctantly, after the man made a threat.

“I heard him saying that if you call the cops I'll kill you, I’m going to kill you. And I was scared. I didn't know what to do,” said Griselda Garcia Gonzalez.

But she ended up calling police as her mother chased the man out of the house.

After he ran away from the home, police said they arrested Timothy Bonneville after finding him hiding outside a house nearby.