Man Bursts Into House, Terrorizing Couple, Dies : Incident: Two escape from their home before the man collapses. A parolee, he was believed to be under the influence of drugs.

A man on parole for drug violations burst into the house of an elderly couple Monday afternoon, terrorized them before they were able to escape, then collapsed and died, apparently of a drug overdose, police and witnesses said.

The couple, Lyle and Pearl Murray, managed to flee their house on West Stonybrook Drive unharmed. The intruder, identified as James Eugene Miles, 32, of Anaheim, was found dead by police on the kitchen floor.

Police said Miles had a history of violence and of drug and alcohol abuse. He was on parole after serving time for drug violations, police said.

“I’m OK,” Lyle Murray, 70, said after the ordeal. “I’m just mad as hell that it happened. I’m sad for the guy who died but glad that we got through.”

Murray said he and his wife were having lunch at 2 p.m. when they heard a loud crash in the front of their house.

“A man just ran in and started yelling, ‘Help me! Help me!’ ” Lyle Murray said as he sat in the garage of a neighbor’s house as investigators scurried around in his.

The man then pushed a couch against the front door and crouched against the couch, Murray said.

“He was bleeding profusely,” Murray said. “He kept saying: ‘They got guns. They’re going to kill me. Please don’t let them in. Please don’t let them kill me.’ ”

Murray, worried about his wife, told her to call 911 and to try to escape, he said.

“I couldn’t dial the phone, I was so upset,” said Pearl Murray, 69, her voice shaking. “I just dropped the phone and ran out the back way.”

After seeing that his wife was safe, Lyle Murray ran out the side door.

The couple joined some of their neighbors, who had also become alarmed, in waiting for police to arrive.

Anaheim police received calls about 2 p.m. Monday reporting a suspicious man, possibly under the influence of drugs, behaving oddly at a Polaris Day School on Dale Street.

William Palmer, a teacher at Polaris, said he saw a man running back and forth between bases on the school’s baseball field. The man would alternately run, then go into a martial arts stance, Palmer said.

“He kept yelling, and every third thing he said would be, ‘Help me!’ ” said Palmer, who is 65. “Then, he would say: ‘Please don’t kill me. Don’t let them kill me. I’m sorry.’ ”

Palmer said he persuaded the man to walk with him to the school’s main building.

“I convinced him I was alone, but he was acting as if there were people around him,” Palmer said. “He would move his head back and forth as if looking for someone, and he would get into his karate crouch.”

“Then, suddenly, he just took off, yelling for help,” Palmer said.

Dawn Bradford said she was driving along Dale Street when she noticed a man running toward her car. The man slapped her car before running to a white pickup truck, Bradford said.

“He was pale white and shaking and screaming,” she said.

Her 9-year-old daughter, Gina, who was sitting in the back of the car, said she saw the man jump into the bed of the truck.

In the truck, the man “ripped his shirt off,” Gina said. “He grabbed a shovel in the truck and started bashing in the window. He had blood all over him.”

The truck’s two passengers escaped unharmed, witnesses said.

A man who identified himself only as John said that he was a neighbor and friend of Miles and that Miles lived nearby off Dale Street. John said he was running after Miles, trying to calm him down, but that his efforts were unsuccessful.

Miles “really thought someone was after him,” the friend said.

While Miles was still inside the Murray house, neighbors said John warned them that Miles had a black belt in karate.

“I wanted to go into the house because I knew James, but the cops wouldn’t let me,” John said.

Police said they surrounded the Murray house and attempted to contact Miles by telephone but that it had apparently been knocked off the receiver. A state parole officer had also knocked on the door in an effort to contact Miles but Miles did not respond.

Police and police dogs entered the house about 5 p.m. after they heard no movement inside.

“When the officers went inside, they found him dead on the floor,” Anaheim Police Lt. Ray Welch said. “We’re not totally sure what happened. . . . It’s a possible overdose.”

Welch said there was no indication that the man committed suicide.

Times staff writer Matt Lait contributed to this report.