Marathon running black belt woman, 53, catches burglar

A would-be burglar met his match when he tried to elude Margo Foster, a marathon runner with a black belt in karate who also knows kickboxing and kung fu.

On Friday morning, the 53-year-old Lighthouse Point resident returned home from tennis practice to find an intruder rummaging through her bedroom.



Without thinking twice, she said in an interview, she bolted through the living and dining rooms and followed the startled man out to the backyard. Police said he had one of Foster's backpacks strapped on his shoulders, filled with her property. She wanted it back.

After a seven-block-long chase, the two struggled for a few minutes, Foster in her white tennis skirt, before the burglar dropped the bag and started running again.



"Go ahead and run," the former yacht detailer said she yelled. "You're not going to get away from me. I've been running for 40 years."

Gregory St. Germain, 24, was arrested by Lighthouse Point police and charged with burglary to an occupied dwelling, battery, possession of stolen property and grand theft. Police said Foster recovered all of her property, including what Foster said was a gold identification bracelet given to her as a teenager by a boyfriend as a Christmas present. "He almost got away with the most sentimental thing I've kept for years," she said.

There's a news video here.