VASSALBORO — Sarah Bizier and her husband, Paul, have lived on Riva Ridge Road for 25 years. They didn’t lock their doors.

Now they’re looking for a security system.

Five minutes after Paul left for work Thursday, a tall, thin man armed with a box cutter and a bandana over his face showed up in their living room archway. Sarah, on crutches because of recent hip trouble, was reclining in a chair.

“Where’s the Vicodin, bitch?” the man said.

He assaulted her, punching her several times in the face before she gave him her prescription painkillers. He left the house and probably fled in a vehicle, according to Capt. Chris Cowan, of the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating the assault that sent Bizier, 51, a retired nurse, to MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta with bruises and a cut.

Police say the man probably knew about the drugs because of a Facebook post from Sarah the night before that mentioned that she had been prescribed Vicodin. Cowan said it’s the first time his office has encountered a crime that probably started that way.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life,” Bizier said in an interview Friday. “He was so angry and so desperate at the same time.”

Bizier said she had been struggling with hip pain for weeks. She treated it with over-the-counter pain relievers — which can exacerbate ulcers — and she recently developed stomach pain. Her brother, a doctor, prescribed her Vicodin until she got to her regular doctor, who said she had an ulcer.

On Wednesday, Bizier took to Facebook intending to warn friends, writing that she was “stupid not to make time to get proper pain control,” telling people to “learn from my mistakes.” The Facebook post twice said that she had Vicodin.

Cowan said people who have been prescribed medication should keep it private, “even from family members.” He said it’s a bad idea to post things on social media about it, since messages can be shared with wide circles of people whom the sender doesn’t know.

“There’s just a lot of sprawl,” he said.

It probably brought an addict to Bizier’s living room. She said when the man demanded the drugs, she first told him that she didn’t know what he was talking about. He punched her in face and held the box cutter to her neck, leaving a minor cut. He said, “You want to rethink that answer?” and punched her again.

Then she gave him the pill bottle stored near her chair. He looked inside, finding fewer pills than he expected. Bizier said he became enraged, accusing her of holding out before screaming and breaking things in the room.

He told her not to call the police or “I’ll come back for you.”

Five minutes later, she called 911. She said she told a sheriff’s deputy that her Facebook post was stupid, but the deputy said it was just innocent, that she didn’t realize that she was “dangling bait in front of a junkie.”

“It just blows my mind that over a handful of pills, someone would do that kind of damage,” she said.

She said she hopes the man is caught and treated, but it was a harrowing experience. For the first time, Bizier said, she and her husband locked their doors Thursday night before sleeping.

“It changes the way that you view other people,” she said. “I hate having to feel like I can’t trust the world, you know?”

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