By Kate Day

A Los Altos Hills couple are recovering after a terrifying armed robbery in their home Tuesday night left them shaken but unharmed. The gunman - still at large when the Town Crier went to press - forced his way into the residence off Moody Road at about 9:30 p.m. and escaped with $300 in cash and jewelry worth less than $100.

“It was very frightening,” said the woman resident, who requested anonymity. “The closest I’d ever come to something like this was in cop movies.”

The robber held the couple at gunpoint for five to 10 minutes after her husband had gone outside to investigate a disturbance, she said. The stranger forced her to bind her husband with duct tape while he held a gun to her head before tying her up, she said. The suspect then apparently looked for something that he didn’t find.

She described the gunman as a white male in his early to mid-20s, about 5 feet 10 inches, medium build with light blue eyes and a pale complexion. He had a heavy accent and was wearing a dark-blue sweat suit with a white crest, red sneakers and a balaclava.

“He seemed to know what he wanted and what he was doing,” she said. The assailant became angry when the couple told him they didn’t have what he was looking for, but up until that point, was very calm. Before leaving, he asked the couple if they were OK and if they could untie themselves, she added.

The woman then managed to free herself and dial 911. Officers from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department responded within 4 minutes, she said. Between 10 and 15 officers searched the immediate area and set up a wider perimeter search with a dog and a helicopter equipped with a heat-detecting sensor, according to Lt. Terry Calderone. Officers recovered an article of clothing from the scene, one of the victims said.

“We believe this guy was specifically targeting a particular house, this wasn’t random,” Calderone said. “It’s possible he got the wrong house.”

The town’s public safety officer, Steve Garcia, activated an automatic telephone alert system at about 12:10 a.m. to 93 phones within a quarter-mile radius, warning residents to stay inside and lock their doors and windows. It was the first time the system had been used since it was installed two years ago. “It worked like a dream,” Garcia said. A spokesman from the

sheriff’s department said he had no information about why there was a delay in activating the alarm.

“This kind of thing is rare. It really never happens in Los Altos Hills,” Garcia said. “I’ve been here four years and I’ve never heard of any robbery like this.”

In a bizarre twist, a newspaper reported Friday that the paper had received a telephone call from the robber who told them the gun was fake and he “just wanted to have fun.” One of the victims who expressed her shock on reading the paper’s story said, “I don’t believe for a minute it was a fake. I thought he was dead serious.”

The paper also reported that a neighbor said the suspect was looking for two Ferraris. The female victim said this was untrue and the robber had asked for a singular object she would not identify.

A spokesman for the sheriff’s department said Friday that the investigation was ongoing and declined to comment on the newspaper’s report.