Police say woman acting on delusions used chainsaw to cut into neighboring apartment

Police suspect a woman who believed a non-existent neighbor in a vacant apartment was coughing at her used a chainsaw to cut through the wall Tuesday.

Police booked her in jail on suspicion of a felony as a result, according to a news release from the Spokane Police Department.

Around 9 p.m. Tuesday, Spokane Police Dispatch said a woman was yelling at 911, saying someone was coughing into her wall from the vacant apartment next to hers. She said multiple times her identity had been stolen and people were being tortured in a garage, the release said.

At around 9:24 p.m., a call came in from the property manager of an apartment complex on the 1900 block of North Washington Street. He told dispatch one of his tenants – later identified as the earlier 911 caller – had used a chainsaw to cut through a pipe and had caused a large water leak, the release said.

Spokane police arrived on scene, where a witness said a tenant believed there was a 6-year-old child in the apartment in a hole in concrete where a toilet used to be. She set a fire in that hole. She then used an electric chainsaw to cut a large section of the wall between the vacant apartment and her apartment, the release said.

Officers learned there was not a child in the apartment and there was nothing to indicate a child was missing, according to the release.

The property manager estimated the damage at approximately $3,000 and pressed charges, the release said.

The woman was booked into the Spokane County Jail for first-degree malicious mischief, a felony, the release said.