The wildly popular online puzzle Wordle has been credited with keeping people across the world sane amid the ravages of the pandemic. But now it has been hailed as a potential life saver, by providing the clue that helped rescue an 80-year-old woman from a 20-hour home invasion hostage ordeal.
Denyse Holt, a retired teacher, found herself locked in her basement in her home in Illinois after being woken up by a naked, knife-wielding intruder in the middle of the night.
After the shivering man got into her bed, he threatened to “cut her” if she screamed before backing down from his threats and asking her to help warm him up in the bath.
Eventually, the man locked her in her basement without food or medication, leaving Holt fearing for her life.
She told the Washington Post that she tried to rally herself and did exercises to keep herself going. She thought to herself: “I don’t want to die like this, and I don’t want my kids to hear that their mother was murdered.”
However, help was at hand, partly thanks to her enthusiasm for Wordle, the viral word game in which players are given six guesses to work out a five-letter word.
Thousands of miles away on the west coast the oldest of her two daughters was irritated that her mother had not texted over her Wordle score as she usually did each day.
“I didn’t send my older daughter a Wordle in the morning. And that was disconcerting to her,” Holt told Chicago’s WBBM.
When the concerned siblings tried to reach their mother on her landline only to be told it was disconnected, they enlisted the help of a neighbour.
He found no answer at the door despite Holt’s car still being in the drive and called the police. When they went round they heard her shouting “I’m here! I’m here! I’m here in the basement!” and freed her.
They also arrested a 32-year-old man in an upstairs bedroom. They believed he had experienced a mental health crisis.