Men come to neighbor’s rescue and shoot home invader in near-death scenario
Via Laura Camper, Star Staff Writer
Fruithurst resident James Melton stood on his front porch Monday and pointed across the way to his neighbor’s house, where he and his son-in-law, armed with shotguns, stopped a home invasion Saturday morning.
Craig Steven Moore, 44, of Tallapoosa, Ga., allegedly broke into Wilma Williams’ home on Cleburne County Road 49 between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m., said Chief Deputy Michael Gore of the Cleburne County Sheriff’s Office. Williams awoke to find an unfamiliar man at her door and ran to get her pistol, which Moore was able to wrest from her; he shot at her twice, missing both times, Gore said. The 69-year-old was able to get away from him long enough to call 911 and Melton’s son-in-law, Charles Price.
Melton, 76, said Price met him on his porch carrying a shotgun and told him Williams was in trouble.
Both men grabbed their shotguns, one ran and the other drove their truck over to Wilma’s house. When Melton got out of the truck he shouted for his son because it was so dark he couldn’t see anything. When he heard his son call back he ran behind the house to find the home invader on top of his son-in-law. A wrestling match ensued where both man hit the attempted robber several times with their rifles, including the son-in-law’s hit that broke his shotgun’s stock on the man.
That was enough to stop the home invader from continuing to fight the Melton and his son-in-law and instead he ran toward the truck in the driveway that was still running.
Melton beat the man to the truck and took the keys out before the home invader could get in and drive off and the woman yelled from the porch that he had a gun.
Suddenly Melton said the man pointed the gun at him from the other side of the truck to shoot and he later recounted, “My son-in-law fell down on the ground and shot under my truck, shot twice and blew his legs out from under him.”
The police arrived at that moment and the intruder was taken to the hospital as well as Wilma. The man that chose to invade a house in the wrong neighborhood faces several felonies such as attempted murder, attempted assault, burglary, and robbery for stealing Wilma’s pistol. His bond is set at $1.7 million.
Melton said that in his neighborhood, residents watch out for each other. Theft is common, he said, but not something like this. Still, he said, he wouldn’t hesitate to come to a neighbor’s aid again.
“She showed me the holes in the wall,” Melton said. “There was a big tuft of her hair in the bullet hole. That’s how close he came to killing her.”
Once again, this sounds like the kind of neighborhood that would be ideal to live in. Wilma called the police after she was almost killed by the man, but she knew it would be a while before police arrived so she knew she could count on he armed neighbors to save her. She proved that even though she struggled with this man and her own defensive gun use failed, she could count on her neighbors and their firearms to still help her and save her life.
Sure enough they came though and used defensive gun use and tactics to fight off this fearless criminal. Who knows what would have happened if she didn’t have neighbors like these and would have had to wait for police to arrive. She probably would not have lived.
We need to be responsible and carry not only for ourselves and our families, but for our neighbors also, you never know when an emergency situation could happen.
