Homeowner Shot in Home Invasion; Used AR15 to Kill Half the Crooks
Russ Chastain 07.12.19
Four armed crooks reportedly stormed into a quiet country home on Marion County, Florida in a dramatic home invasion robbery attempt on the evening of July 10, 2019. Only two lived to tell about it because the disabled-veteran homeowner was armed with an AR-style rifle. Unfortunately, the good guy was also sent to the hospital with a gunshot injury.
It happened in Summerfield, a quiet rural community not far from where I used to live.
One report notes that the suspects’ vehicle had been parked nearby for a couple days earlier, apparently while the crime was being planned by the bad guys.
‘I told the police before that on the weekend I saw a car, a newer car, Volkswagen car that they had reversed into a lot that’s empty next door. I saw it for two days and my neighbors’ aid they saw it prior to that so this was not just a random act on their part,’ [a neighbor] said.
The Sheriff’s Office found the car parked nearby with its doors open. It was registered to one of the deceased assailants.
Prior to the home invasion, one crook had cased the place by snooping around.
During the investigation, the homeowner said he vaguely remembered one of the suspects from a past Craigslist transaction.
The homeowner told detectives that about an hour before the incident one of the suspects knocked on his door. He said he didn’t answer it and then saw the man peering through his back sliding glass door. He said the man mentioned the previous Craigslist transaction and said he needed help with his vehicle. The homeowner told him he was disabled and not able to help and the man left, the report says.
The homeowner went to sleep after that guy departed, to be awakened by loud sounds indicating people storming into his home from both front and rear. He grabbed the AR-style rifle he keeps nearby for self defense.
When faced with a mask-wearing person holding a gun, he said there was an exchange of gunfire. The homeowner did not know who fired first, but that both he and the masked man were firing. Encountering another armed enemy, the homeowner fired at him and “knew he shot him because he heard him moan.”
The masked person was wearing a “Jason” mask and the homeowner thinks that is who shot him. The masked man was found dead on the floor of the dining room “with a semi-automatic pistol with the slide locked near his head.”
When police arrived, they found the masked man as described above and another perforated crook “was found outside the home with a shotgun lying on the ground next to him.” That guy was taken to the hospital, where he later died.
The hospitalized homeowner was reported to be in stable condition.
K-9s tracked the other two home invaders to some woods nearby, where they were taken into custody. They told detectives their intention was to steal marijuana and guns from the home they’d attacked.
Oops.
