Residents reflect on home invasion

By JOE PERRY
Item Staff Writer
jperry@theitem.com

Police said two armed men held up two women at a Dunway Drive home Wednesday afternoon and only made off with an EBT food stamp card.

A report said about 3:22 p.m. Wednesday, two men entered through the back door of the home in the first block of the street, one armed with a shotgun, the other man brandishing a black handgun. With red bandanas and masks covering their faces, they demanded money from two women, ages 56 and 27.

As neither of the women had any money, the gunmen went through their pockets and had the younger woman take off her shoes, then took the older woman’s EBT card and fled the scene.

About 2:30 p.m. Thursday, the two women and two men — 54-years-old and 43-years-old — sat in the back yard of the small wooden, boarded-up home in fold-up chairs around a makeshift fire pit made of cinder blocks and talked about the ordeal. The younger man had neither kind words for law enforcement nor anything nice to say about a nearby apartment complex, where he thinks the intruders live.

As the older man took swigs from a 40-ounce King Cobra malt liquor bottle, the younger man rolled a cigarette and drank his beer from a coffee mug.

The older woman said she inherited the home from her aunt and the windows are covered with plywood because vandals broke the glass. Just before the intruders came in the back door, she said, she was talking with the younger woman about finding a new and better place to live.

“We were scared to death,” the older woman said, grabbing her sweater with her left hand just under the chin to show how one of the men accosted her. “We didn’t have no money.”

The younger woman said she tried to hide behind the door, but before she knew it, there was a gun to her head.

The older man said he and the women had been eating Doritos and tuna fish when he left to look for wood for a fire to heat up some soup. He said he got out of prison last summer and hails from the “backwoods of Louisiana.” He blamed the crime in the area on black people and threatened to shoot any more robbers. The younger man said he was in Wedgefield during the robbery but was convinced the two gunmen were watching the home and waiting to make sure the men were gone before they barged in.

The younger man, using racial epithets, said the two gunmen are the same two who jumped him last weekend and also robbed a taxi driver in Eastwood Park.

“I got lynched in the park and you want to lock me up?,” the younger man said, expressing anger with police, as they checked to see if his mo-ped was stolen. “We don’t bother no one. We don’t do drugs. We just drink some and smoke cigarettes and don’t bother anybody. What kinda s—- is that? That’s wrong as hell.”

The two gunmen are described as black, 5 feet 8 inches and 150 pounds and between 18 and 25 years old. One man was wearing black pants and a black coat along with a red bandana and black face mask. The other man was wearing blue shorts, a red bandana and black face mask.

Anyone who has any information is urged to call Sumter Police at (803) 436-2700 or Crime Stoppers at (803) 436-2718. Callers can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a cash reward.



Contact Staff Writer Joe Perry at jperry@theitem.com or (803) 774-1272.