Still Dating? Man Spends Four Days Locked in Storage Unit After Girlfriend’s “Ultimate Timeout”

There are things you do in the heat of an argument when you're dating that are forgivable—raising your voice, storming out, rage-eating an entire pizza. And then, there are things that are closer to, well… attempted murder.

A 51-year-old North Carolina man learned this the hard way when his girlfriend locked him in a storage unit for four days and just… left. Not for a coffee run, not to cool off, but for four actual days.

It all started with an argument (as most let’s-test-the-limits-of-the-legal-system situations while dating do). At some point, she told him to grab something from the back of their overstuffed storage unit. Being a reasonable human, he did. The moment he got back there, she slammed the door shut, shouted, “This is what you get!” and—without so much as a “see ya never”—locked it up and left.

And by locked it up, I mean she doubled up his lock to make sure he couldn’t Houdini his way out.

So there he was, trapped in a pitch-black, hoarder’s paradise of a storage unit, presumably playing real-life Tetris with broken lamps and old furniture while trying to find a way out.

Days passed. No food. No water. No light. Just whatever treasures were buried under mountains of forgotten junk. The dude was running on zero percent battery—both physically and emotionally—until, finally, he found his phone.

Which, by the way, is wild. Imagine losing your phone in a pile of storage unit chaos, then spending four days blindly feeling around for it like the world’s worst game of Marco Polo.

Once he found it, he called 911.

"I've been locked in a storage unit for about a week now, and I just now found my phone."

The operator, probably blinking in disbelief, asked, "Are you still stuck inside?"

To which he responded, "Yes, my girlfriend locked me in here. She doubled up my lock… I just need out of here. I can't breathe. I haven't had nothing to drink or anything."

So yeah, rescue time. Emergency crews rushed to the unit, forced it open, and pulled the man out of his self-storage nightmare. He was dehydrated but alive—which, considering his girlfriend had apparently bet against that outcome, is pretty impressive.

Authorities didn’t hesitate to call it what it was: attempted murder. One official even stated they truly believe she intended for him to die inside.

For her part, 52-year-old Robin Deaton was promptly arrested and charged with attempted murder and kidnapping.

But here’s where it gets even messier. After being freed, the man suddenly changed his story, claiming she accidentally locked him inside and had no idea he was in there. He wants to keep dating her, doesn't he?

Police, however, are not buying it—and given the whole "this is what you get!" comment, it’s safe to say they shouldn’t.The moral of the story? Maybe don’t date someone who sees storage unit imprisonment as an acceptable form of conflict resolution. Also, keep your phone on you. You never know when you’ll need it.