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BY HALE MCGRANAHAN
STAFF REPORTER
Just two weeks ago Dot Howard had never been so scared. She had $1,300 stolen from her during a home invasion. The money lost is the least of her worries. Howard now lives in fear of unannounced visitors coming to her home. “Whew,” she said, as strangers entered her driveway.
It’s pretty understandable, considering the circumstances of what happened a week before when three strangers invaded her home. “I never dreamed something like that would happen during the daytime,” Howard said. “I never open the door for anyone. I don’t know why
I did for them. I guess because I saw the bucket.”
Police have not made any arrests in the attack. What Howard saw was a red bucket that at a quick glance appeared to be used by Salvation Army volunteers. Two men and a woman announced to Howard they were with the Salvation Army. She opened the door to her King Street home she has lived in for the past seven years. The suspects, one of which Howard described as a short, black male with a blue tattoo on the left side of his neck carried the red bucket. Howard figured she could donate a few dollars, even though it crossed her mind that the Salvation Army doesn’t normally go door-to-door.
Howard keeps her doors locked and has a security camera at her front door. “When I came to unlock the door and hand them the money, I went to close the screen door and he put his foot in the way and said, ‘Now, I’ve got something foryou.’ He hit me right on the head,” she said. “He pushed me and kicked me and hollered to shut up. “I thought I was going to die. I knew I was gone,”Howard said.
The other male had a hood over his face. The female kept her face hidden too. The pair went straight for her bedroom, where Howard said they found $1,000 hidden in a bedroom slipper. “They went straight back there,” she said. “I believe that girl and guy knew me. They didn’t want to show me their face. The little, short guy didn’t mind showing me his face (the one hitting her with the gun). If I see him, I’d
know him.”
While the two were going through her clothes, she pleaded for the gunman to let her get asthma medicine. After the man told Howard to
“shut up,” she told him about $300 in her purse ‘Will you take it and leave? she asked him. The man also found another $20.
The female came ran through after about 20 minutes and went into garage. The other man had left the room. While the female was
in the garage, Howard hit the garage door button and ran off when the female left the house.
“When she ran, I ran too,” Howard said. That’s when she ran to next door to a neighbor’s house then called the police. “They really got me,” Howard said. “I never had anything like that happen to me. I’ll never let anyone in my house anymore.”
The Salvation Army, upon hearing about the attack, gave her $25 days later. “That was nice of (the Salvation Army) doing that, so I’m
going to help someone else,” she said. Howard said she annually gives to Cops for Tots and was planning to add the $25 the Salvation Army gave her.
Tondra Scott, Howard’s niece. was scared and mad when she heard her aunt had been the victim of a home invasion. “Whoever has done this were cowards,” Scott said. “For them to have a gun, and them to hit on her at her age…the young guys, they didn’t have to beat her.”
Howard was sympathetic to Betty Looney, another woman attacked earlier that morning in Anderson. “They beat her so badly. I was lucky,” Howard said.
If you know anything about this home invasion please call Det. Jason Bash at 848-2160.
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