Tricia Tiede

The cabin was an awesome place to go to.

As a young child, I loved going up there, bringing aunts and uncles and cousins.

The cabin was about two and a half miles off the road.

You have to snowmobile in during the wintertime.

It was an escape from the world for our family.

It was Christmas time.

We were off for the holidays.

There's a large Christmas tree with lots of gifts around it.

Dad and I arrived at the cabin and as soon as we got off the snowmobiles, a man jumped out from the garage with a full ski mask on and a gun and demanded that we come inside right away.

Don't move, don't move.

Don't move, don't do anything.

So then the other man, restraining my sister, pulled his gun out, pointed it at my dad, pulled the trigger once, click, no fire.

Twice, click, no fire.

And then the third one went off, that blast was so close I could feel it.

They immediately got busy doing things.

There was a sense of urgency.

They began telling us, we've got to hurry and load the snowmobiles and get out of here.

I had this feeling inside of me that we needed to listen and do what they said until the moment came to where Lynnae and I could make our escape.

I had all kinds of different plans of how to wreck the snowmobile, how to throw him off into a tree, how to get rid of him.

But all I could think of is I couldn't leave my sister.