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Call brings quick arrest in home invasion
Alert neighbor aids capture of 3
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Published: February 26, 2009
Updated: 02/26/2009 07:27 pm
UPDATED:
The attack and robbery of a 96-year-old Winston-Salem woman yesterday afternoon began with a simple knock.
Jane Dwiggins was home alone, so she got up to answer.
"I very foolishly opened the screen (door), because I thought he asked me something, and I wanted to hear what he said," Dwiggins said in an interview yesterday from her home on Lyndhurst Avenue in Ardmore. "But it all happened so fast."
Police said that the men pushed their way in, bowling over Dwiggins.
The men were yelling, "Where's your money! Where's your money!" said Molly Henning, Dwiggins' daughter.
One of the men stood over Dwiggins, pointing a gun and telling her not to move. The other two went through the house. Police did not say which man they believe had the gun.
Henning was out getting groceries when the robbery occurred. She said she thought that the sound of her car returning home may have spooked the men. One of them jumped over her mother on the way out, she said.
Henning put her groceries away, unaware of the robbery, and talked on the phone with a friend. Dwiggins was on the other side of the house, talking to a 911 dispatcher without realizing that her daughter was home.
When Henning heard the front door slam, she walked from the back of the house to the front and saw drawers and boxes overturned. Her mother was gone.
"It was freakish," she said.
Before Dwiggins reported the robbery, a resident had already called police to report people in the neighborhood who appeared suspicious, police said.
The dispatcher stayed on the line with Dwiggins until an officer arrived.
The door had slammed as Dwiggins and the officer left to see if she could identify three men that police had stopped at Lyndhurst and Bedford Road. After Dwiggins made the identification, police arrested the men and took her back home.
"I'm just so grateful for the neighbor," Henning said. "I wish I knew which neighbor did it, because they helped."
Officers seized a small handgun during the arrest. The three men charged with armed robbery were identified as Tywon Orlando Walker, 18, of 2767 Piedmont Circle; Tyrie Kenard Baldwin, 17, of 1204 Brookstown Ave.; and Delmario Lamontae Blockson, 20, of 433 Meadowview Drive.
On Thursday the three were charged with second-degree kidnapping and housebreaking, and their bonds were increased. Walker's bond is $475,000, Baldwin's is $350,000 and Blockson's is $351,000.
Dwiggins was not hurt in the incident.
"She was just so scared that I was going to drive in, and come in and be robbed," Henning said. "At least they didn't shoot her, or break a leg or arm when they threw her to the floor."
A search of online prison records show that Walker has three past convictions for felony breaking and entering. He was last released on Jan. 20.
■ Dan Galindo can be reached at 727-7377 or at dgalindo@wsjournal.com.
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