It could have been a scene from "Goldilocks meets Smokey and the Bandit."
On April 6, Utah County deputy sheriff Harold Curtis, 28, awoke to find someone had been sleeping on his couch, and that someone was still there."I walked into the living room in my underwear and saw a man lying on the couch," Curtis said Thursday. "He was wearing a T-shirt, jeans, a baseball cap and hiking boots, and he took up the whole couch.
"I walked back into the bedroom, got my gun and tried to think of a logical reason he would be there. I spent 30 seconds but couldn't come up with one."
Curtis woke his wife and asked her if she had any relatives sleeping over. "I hoped he was't a relative. He was kind of dirty, and I wasn't sure I wanted him for a relative."
His wife assumed he was teasing her, as usual, and had to see the man before she would believe the story. Since the phone was by the couch, Curtis used his sheriff's radio to summon help from Springville Police. But first he put on some clothes.
"When Springville came, we woke him up, but he was still intoxicated. It took him about 10 minutes to realize he was in the wrong house."
The mystery guest turned out to be David Evan Crandall, 23, Springville. Crandall said he had been out drinking and a friend led him to the unlocked back door of the Curtis house. He could not remember the friend's full name.
The Springville City Court found Crandall guilty of breaking probation and of trespassing and sentenced him to 90 days in the Utah County Jail, where his former host can keep a close eye on him. Curtis is a deputy at the jail.
The family will not be accepting any more unannounced boarders, Curtis said.
"We don't want any more surprises. If you try our back door now, it will be locked. I doubt we will ever forget to do that again."