CHAMPAIGN – It was so foggy and overcast that Sunday night, Kathy Kinser just knew the burglars would be back.

"If they don't come, they're crazy," she thought. "You can't see 100 yards in front of your face."

Not only was she right, she was ready.

The petite, articulate and oh-so-spunky 68-year-old Champaign woman couldn't quit obsessing about the theft of her brand-new refrigerator. She was angry and couldn't sleep.

More troubling than the loss of an insured appliance was the violation of her sense of security.

On the night of Jan. 19, burglars entered the only new home that she and her retired ophthalmologist husband Dave have ever built. The burglars stole an almost $3,000 refrigerator and dragged the new dishwasher from its nook in the kitchen to the garage. She figured they'd be back for it. Her gut told her sooner than later.

"The reasons they came back were greed and fear. That's what led me to create the plan," she told The News-Gazette. "Greed because they know what they missed, and fear because they know the owner will soon be living there."

Her plan was simple, even if foolishly reckless: Surprise the burglars inside the dark house while armed with an ax.

"My intention was not to kill, but to make it real hard for them to burglarize anyone again," she said. "I realize I am the poster child for what not to do. I will not recommend anybody do this."

On the evening of Jan. 24, Kinser went to her new home – alone – the third time since the first burglary that she had done so. Her husband of 41 years had strongly advised against it, counseling that it was a waste of time.

"I always listen to his advice. There have only been a few times when I do what I wanted to do in the first place."

This was one of those rare occasions.

She left the dog at home, knowing that Symphony Sunday would bark if he heard intruders. She didn't own a cell phone, and the new house isn't wired for communications yet.

And she waited – with a butcher knife and a sock with a rock in her left hand and the ax in her right.

It struck her that the weight of the objects in each hand was about equal, so she used the time to exercise, feeling guilty about all the aerobics classes she's missed while working on the house.

"I'm pumped. And I'm talking to God. 'God, if they come, please take my fear away.' I had two good hours of walking around exercising," she said.

About 10:30 p.m., she saw lights. A vehicle she thought was a Jeep or some kind of sport utility vehicle pulled up in the driveway. Two people got out, headed for the side walk-in door to the garage. They were "burly men" clad in sweatshirts with hoods pulled over their heads and puffy coats. The darkness hid their faces.

"My heart was doing somersaults in my chest" as she watched them from a crack in the laundry room window, next to the door they were headed to. She had put boards in front of the window so they couldn't shine a light in to see her. She had unscrewed the light bulbs.

"I knew if he reached for the light switch I would be right here with my ax and could do a lot of damage to his hand."

But instead of entering there, the figures moved around the house to the opposite side, prompting her into her kitchen.

As the would-be burglars shone their flashlights inside, Kinser was sure they had spotted her, butcher knife and ax raised overhead.

But they hadn't, she figured out later, thanks to reflective coating on the outside of the windows.

She glided back to the laundry room, hiding behind the door from that room into the kitchen, figuring the burglars would enter the laundry room from the garage.

"I heard this terrible crash, bang," she said, and thought they had come through the sun room door. It was the front door that had been kicked in.

As she stood in the laundry room, a man with a flashlight came through her dining room and kitchen to the laundry room, probably to open the overhead garage door to let in his partner.

His attention went first to the new washer and dryer that had been installed since the previous burglary.

"He starts to push the door open (the one she was standing behind). I had both hands on the ax. I came out and came down with the ax on top of his head with the sharp end. At the same time I contacted his head, I let out this enormous roar and pushed the alarm button on my key chain so the car alarm was going off," she said.

"He did groan, but he turned and ran back the way he came. He was tripping over barrels that the workers had left here," she said.

Her car alarm wailing, Kinser opened the overhead garage door and could see two people "running as fast as they could to get to their car."

"I did yell a few choice words at them."

Collecting herself, she quickly walked a half block to one of the few neighbors living in the infant neighborhood. Introducing herself as the new neighbor, she calmly informed them that burglars had hit her home and she had hit back – with an ax.

The woman told her to wait a moment, retrieved her cell phone to dial 911, then invited Kinser in and handed her the phone. By this time, Kinser's hand was shaking so violently, she thought she would drop the phone.

Her adrenaline had peaked moments earlier when the ax made contact with the burglar's head, she said. His adrenaline started to flow when he got hit, she theorized. She found no blood on the ax but was sure she hit him in the head.

Since the incident, Kinser has applied for a firearm owner's identification card and plans to buy a Glock, on the advice of a good friend who's an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Having fired guns in the country at cans and bottles as a teen, Kinser said she plans to go to the firing range and be ready to use the gun if necessary.

Learning that the couple who burglarized her home were a man and a woman addicted to heroin, Kinser said she felt compassion for them and was genuinely surprised that the partner to the man she beaned was a woman.

But she doesn't regret the course she took, especially since her plan worked.

"Maybe he'll get out of his heroin habit and do something really worthwhile. I'm glad I didn't hit him any harder or kill him," she said.

"Every once in a while we have to be brought up short and reminded that we might be on the wrong path."