A man fleeing from the police after committing a double homicide thought he could seek shelter in the home of an older woman. When he knocked, however, he came face to face with a hulking Marine and his gun-toting neighbor.

The Daily Beast reports that Ross Anderson of Cleveland, Tenn. gunned down Rachael Johnson and her 5-year-old son Colton on Dec. 7 before escaping through the back door. He drove north for two hours, and at some point in the early morning spotted Evelyn McQuaid driving home from her graveyard shift around 2:30 a.m. Anderson followed her to her home in the hopes of finding shelter, perhaps by force.

Anderson did not anticipate the intervention of two Marines, Monty McQuaid and Josh Bush.

“He barked up the wrong part of the neighborhood,” Bush said to the Daily Beast. “He definitely wasn’t going to get away with anything here.”

When the killer knocked on the door, he was surprised when retired Marine Monty McQuaid answered instead of his mother. McQuaid was staying at his parents while his own home was being built, and he woke up when a knock at the door startled his dog and sleeping child. He briefly spoke to Anderson at the door.

“I think somebody told me I could stay here tonight. That this could be a safe place,” he allegedly told McQuaid, a Marine who now runs a keysmith business.

“Who told you that,’ McQuaid asked, before closing the door. “What startled me was how close he was to the door.”

After this encounter, McQuaid called the police.

Later, the Marine realized that Anderson probably planned to force his way into the house, kill his 63-year-old mom and 70-year-old dad and then steal his mom’s car to evade the law. If he hadn’t physically intimidated Anderson, his whole family–including his wife and young child–may have been in danger.

“How different things could have been if somebody else answered the door,” he said. “We were less than two feet apart. I’m 250-pounds and a pretty big guy and I had 6 to 8 inches towering over him.”

After leaving the McQuaids, Anderson crept next door to the home of active-duty Marine Josh Bush to try the same thing. Unlike the McQuaids, who did not own any guns, Bush answered the door with a firearm at his side.

“I stepped out onto my porch and asked him ‘What are you doing?’ and ‘What do you need?’ and he tells me ‘I don’t mean any harm’ and I told him: ‘It’s probably a good idea for you to get out of here,’” Bush told Anderson.

Turned away once more, Anderson didn’t get very far before the police apprehended him. He later confessed to killing his girlfriend and a child.

The McQuaid told the Daily Beast that the experience scared them enough to buy firearms for every member of the family.

“If you knock on my door you will be greeted with a 12 gauge,” McQuaid said. “I’m not worried about a terrorist coming to hurt me or my family. I’m worried about people who are mentally ill who have carry permits.”