A Tale of Murder - Part 2

In the last blog entry I told a little about my cousin Dick and some family background and at the end I was explaining that Dick was peacefully sitting at home watching TV after midnight in the early hours of July 2, 2009 when there was a knock at the door.  It was a young woman saying that her car had broken down nearby and could she use the phone to call for help.  Dick was always the type of person to help someone when they had a problem and invited her in to use the phone. 

Shortly after she was in the door Dick heard some more noise outside and going to the door was attacked by two more males waiting outside.  One knocked Dick down a put his foot on his neck to hold him there.  In the meantime the other male and woman began searching through the house for coins reportedly worth $50,000 and possibly also any guns that Dick had.  During all of this there was another male waiting on the street as the driver of the get away car.    The female and male in the house began searching for the coin collections that they had came after and possibly any guns.  About this time the noise had stirred up the dog next door and he began barking and had aroused the neighbor.

At this point the robbery plan started falling apart and time had run out for the robbers to make any kind of a significant haul.  Next door the neighbor had awakened and seeing that something extremely wrong was happening came out of his house to investigate with a large wooden dowel and seeing Dick being attacked and held down went after the guy with the club.  By this time the man and woman inside the house had grabbed some coins and they fled to the car along with Dick's attacker and made a get away.  The neighbor seeing that Dick was seriously injured called 911 for help. 

I don't know how the police system works but apparently an all points bulletin was put out on the robbery and that the theft of coins was involved.  Later in the morning an off duty policeman acting as a security guard at an IGA grocery store observed people trying to convert coins to dollars at the machine there and having some problems doing it.  He put two and two together and called it in and asked for backup.  Within a matter of hours all four were under arrest.  What they were trying to cash in were 740 commenorative quarters worth about $185 and amounted to their entire heist.

(To be continued)