An early morning break-in at a Logan County, West Virigina, home last Saturday left one suspect in the hospital with a gunshot wound to the stomach and another suspect behind bars after they were caught red-handed by the homeowner’s nephew, according to a local ABC affiliate.
It was about 5 a.m. when the homeowners, Bill and Mary Hall, received a phone call from their security system company alerting them of a possible break-in. The couple wasn’t home at the time, so they called their nephew, Terry Robbins, who lived nearby, to go check the home for them.
Not knowing exactly what was happening at the house, Robbins, who has a valid concealed carry permit, armed himself with a handgun for his own protection.
When Robbins arrived at the home, he immediately saw that things were not right and moments later found Jimmy Walker and Justin Blair trying to break into the house. Walker is a distant relative, Robbins told reporters.
“I told them both, just please get on the ground, I’ve got a gun, I’ll shoot you, don’t try anything just get on the ground until the police get here,” Robbins said.
But it took the police more than an hour to get there and in the meantime Walker was not ready to give up quite so easily. He came at Robbins in a threatening manner, so Robbins pulled the trigger and shot him – a moment that seemed to happen in slow motion and one that Robbins said he will never forget.
“You see the smoke. You hear the bang, the flash. You can almost see the bullet going, and you know once it leaves it can’t come back,” Robbins explained, adding, “I didn’t want to hurt anybody, but I was protecting myself.”
Walker was shot in the stomach and took off crawling down the road to his father’s house a few doors down. Walker’s father told reporters that the attempted burglary was most likely the result of his son’s drug addiction and that although he had been expecting something like this to happen, it certainly didn’t make it any easier when he opened the front door and found his bleeding son lying on the doorstep.
“It’s rough seeing him over there with his guts shot up,” Walker’s father said.
Struggling to hold his tears back, Walker’s father admitted that while he does feel bad for his son, he also feels bad for the homeowners who were the victims of his son’s disappointing actions.
Walker was taken to a local hospital where he remains in intensive care and will face charges once he’s released.
The second suspect, Blair, was also taken to the hospital to be treated for injuries he received while police struggled to keep him contained. Apparently while he was sitting handcuffed in the back of the police cruiser he busted out of the window and crawled through the broken to escape. He ran to the home of a nearby relative, Clint Toler. When police found him, Toler was attempting to help Blair remove his handcuffs. As a result, Toler is now in jail as well, and Blair was apprehended for a second time.
Robbins will not face any charges. He said he hopes that Walker will pull through and the incident will prove to be a life-changing event to help Walker get back on a positive path.
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