Excuse anyone who heard about Sally Joyner's weekend and figured she was full of bull. Even she didn't expect to be taken seriously when calling for help Saturday morning. "I called 911 and said, 'Please don't think I'm crazy, but a bull just crashed through my front door,' " Joyner said Tuesday. Joyner was in her house at 1105 E. Brookview Lane about 11 a.m. Saturday. Joyner was in the kitchen and her 16-year-old granddaughter, Samantha Thompson, was lying on a couch in the living room, both above ground level."I was sitting here in the kitchen and all of a sudden I heard this loud crash," Joyner said. "I jumped up and looked down the stairs and there was a humongous bull in our foyer."Looking down the stairs leading to the home's entry area, Joyner noticed the full glass front door was gone and glass was piled an inch thick on the floor. Joyner and Thompson were both stunned. "I was screaming," Joyner said. "I went down a couple stairs and then I thought, 'What am I doing?' " First, Joyner called police. Then she dialed her husband, Steve.
"When I called him at work, he couldn't understand what I said," Joyner said. "I tried to tell him a bull just came through the front door. He was just saying, 'What?' I told him, 'You need to get home.' " According to a police report from the Peoria County Sheriff's Department, three bulls escaped in the area. Two were seen running in Detweiller Park and one wandered into the Brookview subdivision, where the Joyners live.
Gary B. Wessels, of Galesburg was in charge of the bulls when they got loose, the report said.
During a phone call with the Journal Star, Wessels declined to explain where the bulls escaped from or how they did it. Other than to say he later found the crashing bull, Wessels would not discuss the incident. "It's none of your business," Wessels said. Sally Joyner said the couple's insurance company is working with Wessels to replace the door, which the report estimated was valued at $1,500. Joyner was thankful the bull's voyage indoors was confined to the ground-level foyer, and that he didn't go up or down stairways leading off the front entrance to the home.
"A flower pot and all the glass were going down my stairs," Joyner said. "He fought around in the foyer for a while and then finally went back out the same way he came in. "I'm glad he found his way back out. I don't know how a bull thinks. With me being as hysterical about it as I was, he probably wanted to get out of here."
