Belinda Valdivia, her husband, and her three daughters were inside the home on Aldine Mail Route when they said they heard a commotion at the door and then realized someone was breaking in through their front door window.
"When I shout out, 'Who is it?' he said, 'Open the door, b-word. I'm gonna get in there and kill you,'" Valdivia said.
Valdivia said she alerted her husband, who grabbed a golf club and went outside to confront the suspect, while she called 911 and her three daughters hid in a closet.
Speaking only with ABC13 on Wednesday, she said that she doesn't know McDowell, but sometimes sees him pushing a shopping cart in the neighborhood.
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Valdivia said the man had somehow pried open her front gate and smashed several windows on her SUV before attacking the house.
Police said this is the second time this month that the family had a run-in with the man. The first time, McDowell allegedly was making threats.
Despite a criminal history that includes convictions for robbery, assault, and evading, McDowell bonded out of jail for $100.
During McDowell's initial court appearance on Tuesday, he had several outbursts refuting the police's details about his relationship to the victims, refused to use a court-appointed attorney, and maintained his innocence.
Now the victims say they are out hundreds of thousands of dollars because they had to replace all of the smashed windows.
After the latest alleged attack, a hearing officer originally set his bond at $100,000 on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and felony criminal mischief.
On Thursday, the judge denied him bond.
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