Police: Homeless man broke into Boca home

BOCA RATON, Fla. - Police say Timothy Guilfoil admitted he broke into a Boca Raton home — because he thought it was his own.

But police say there was a problem with the 56-year-old man's story: Officers recognized Guilfoil as a homeless man who has been spotted in the community for almost a decade.

A Boca Raton Police report recounts the events that led to Guilfoil's arrest:

On Tuesday, just before 4 a.m., an odd noise echoed through a three-story townhouse in the 500 block of South Ocean Blvd.

The sound awoke the homeowner, Gregory Knapp, 51, an American Airlines pilot who lives with his wife and daughter.

He immediately got of his bed and crept to the top of the stairs. There, he listened. From his upstairs bedroom, Knapp heard someone talking to his dog on the first floor.

He yelled down the stairs and demanded to know who was in his house. Knapp could see the intruder's brown shoes and blue jeans at the bottom of the stairs, but he couldn't see his face.

The intruder answered, the report says, and identified himself as "Tim." He then said he was leaving.

Knapp called police.

By the time police rolled up to the home, patrol officers had already found Guilfoil outside. He was wearing a green-and-white button-down shirt, blue jeans and brown shoes. The clothing matched Knapp's description.

"Guilfoil spontaneously uttered that he accidentally went in the wrong house thinking it was his," the report says.

But Guilfoil couldn't answer why he entered the house after realizing it wasn't his.

Officers then asked Guilfoil where he lived.

"Boca," Guilfoil said, according to the report. But when he couldn't give an address, police understood why.

"Guilfoil is a longtime resident of Boca Raton," the officer wrote in the report, "and is known to me as being residentially challenged."

Inside the house, officers discovered someone had knocked over Knapp's television, perhaps explaining the noise.

Guilfoil, who has been arrested 35 times since 1989 on various charges, remained in the Palm Beach County Jail late Wednesday without bail.