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Police search for gunman
Masked man shoots pregnant woman during home invasion
Alan Rogers
Hickory Police officer Matt Williams prepares to search the area around Cool Park Mobile Home Park with his canine, Bachak, after a home invasion and shooting on Friday.
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Published: October 4, 2008
HICKORY - A pregnant woman was rushed to Frye Regional Medical Center Friday after being shot by a masked man wielding a shotgun during a home invasion. The suspect is still at large.
Maj. Coy Reid of the Catawba County Sheriff's Office said the gunman entered a home in the Cool Park Mobile Home Park at 3102 Kool Park Road around 4:45 p.m. and demanded money.
Reid said that during the robbery in the home a scuffle broke out and the suspect hit a man in the forehead with the butt of a sawed-off shotgun. Reid said the suspect then turned the weapon on a pregnant woman in the house and shot her in the hip.
Reid declined to identify either victim, but said the wound to the pregnant woman was not life-threatening.
A neighbor said her 12-year-old daughter alerted her that something was wrong just before shots were heard in the neighborhood.
Debbie Justus said she realized something was wrong when she heard her daughter scream, "God, Mama, God, Mama, he's got a bandanna over his face and he's going to do something."
Justus said she ran outside and saw a black man whose hair was styled in cornrows holding a sawed-off shotgun. He was dressed in black and wore a red bandanna over his face.
Justus said she saw a cream-colored Oldsmobile speed away as the gunman ran across Kool Park Road.
"He took off out of here like a streak of lightning," Justus said.
A second underage eyewitness said the car, driven by a black male, pulled into the trailer park at about 4:45 p.m. and a second black male, who was lying down in the front seat, popped up and jumped from the car.
Justus saw the man go behind a mobile home on lot 45 and, seconds later, she heard the booming sound of a shotgun blast and called 911.
"The sheriff responded very quickly," Justus said.
Reid said by the time deputies arrived, the suspect had fled through the wooded area behind the mobile home.
Deputies sealed off a perimeter and locked down nearby St. Stephens High and Arndt Middle schools.
The school day was over and the remaining students were sent home, Reid said.
The Hickory Police Department sent a K9 unit to assist in the search for the gunman, but the dog lost the trail, police said. The sheriff's K9 was brought in to try to pick up the trail, but Reid said he doesn't think the suspect is still in the area.
"We think somebody's come in and picked him up," Reid said.
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