'Ghost' in woman's apartment turns out to be stranger living in her wardrobe

Andrew Swofford appeared via video link. Photo / WHNT19

A US woman who realised her clothes were going missing and discovered hand prints left on her walls found she was dealing with something seriously sinister lurking in her home.

The North Carolina University student, known only as Maddie, told local television station WHNT19 she was growing increasingly concerned in recent days after strange things started happening in her off-campus apartment.

Maddie, a student, said she could hear "rattling in my closet and I thought it was a raccoon" late last month, news.com.au reports.

At another point, she almost thought her home was haunted after she reported missing clothing and "a hand print on my bathroom wall and my mirror".

"Since I've been living here, I've had pieces of clothes missing like shirts and pants," Maddie said.

Believing her apartment may have been haunted, Maddie decided to investigate the noises coming from her wardrobe last Saturday.

This is Andrew Swofford. A UNCG junior got home on Saturday, to find him in her closet, wearing her clothes. @myfox8 pic.twitter.com/n4PFMhtW2b

— Hayley Fixler (@HayleyFixlerTV) February 4, 2019

On Saturday afternoon, she placed her hand on the door knob and called out, "Who's in here?".

Astonishingly, someone answered: "Oh, my name's Drew."

Maddie opened the door of her wardrobe to find an unknown adult male, standing in the tiny space, dressed in her clothes.

"He was in there wearing all of my clothes, my socks, my shoes," she said.

The man, 30-year-old Andrew Clyde Swofford, was even clutching one of Maddie's book bags, which he had stuffed full of her clothing.

The terrified woman tried to speak with Swofford to keep him calm, while she waited for her boyfriend to arrive.

"I said, 'You need to take my clothes off', so he took my clothes off," she said.

Maddie said while she waited, Swofford tried on more of her clothes, one of her hats and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror.

At one point, Swofford also said Maddie was extremely pretty and "asked to hug me".

However, she didn't let the stranger touch her.

Police detained Swofford and he was held in the nearby Guilford County Jail before his first court appearance this week.

Maddie and her flatmate couldn't understand how Swofford had managed to breach the premises, as they "also keep their doors locked".

According to local media, the building's property management are attempting to figure out how Swafford was able to get inside the unit.

He has been held on a $37,000 bond in jail and is facing 14 charges for this and other, unrelated offences.

But the incident has left Maddie and her school friend so traumatised, that they packed up their possessions and prepared to move out of the complex this week.

"Last night I did not feel safe," Maddie said. "I slept with my roommate in her bed, I can't stay here, My closet stinks, every time I go in there, it's a bad vibe."