WINONA, Minn. – Hearing a noise in his house late at night, a man got up to check. In the kitchen was a guy rummaging in the refrigerator. “Get out,” he told the guy and pushed him out on a back porch. “Don’t you know who I am,” the guy said, as if of some importance or least someone to be recognized. Then there was a struggle. The guy pulled the man’s hair and punched him and wandered off. The 61-year-old homeowner called police, who saw his scratched legs and bruised arms. The man said entry apparently had been through an unlocked screen door. He declined medical treatment. This was in the 400 block of West Fourth Street. Then came another police call. Not far away a guy had punched a window at a second house and said, somewhat inexplicably, “I can give you money.” Officers rushed over and arrested Michael David Hilton, 32, of Winona, on tentative charges of burglary and assault. The second homeowner said he thought he recognized the intruder from around the neighborhood. There was no physical attack in the second encounter, but the homeowner said the would-be intruder had challenged him to “assume a fighting position.”
Hilton. One victim reported Hilton asking for money, the second victim that he offered money. Not much of this made sense.