- November 18, 2024
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Two deputies who arrived at an E-section duplex after a resident reported an armed robbery got more than they bargained for: When they pulled into the driveway, the building stank of marijuana.
Resident Scott Ownbey called the Sheriff’s Office from the hospital, where he’d gone for treatment for a head injury, according to a Sheriff’s Office incident report.
Ownbey, 50, was home at 3 a.m. June 4 when someone started knocking on his front door, he told deputies.
Ownbey told deputies he is legally blind and can only see blurry images. When he walked to the door and opened it, he said, three masked men rushed into the home, grabbed him, and demanded valuables and cash.
Ownbey’s teenage son came out of a bedroom, and one of the men pointed a gun at the boy and told him to go back to his room or he’d shoot him.
The teen did as he was told, and the gunman wheeled toward Ownbey and “placed the gun on his forehead, stating that if he didn't get some cash he would shoot him,” according to the deputy’s report.
Ownbey said he didn’t have any money.
The man grabbed Ownbey's gold necklace and ripped it from his neck, and hit him on the side of the face with the handgun, according to the report.
Then the three men ran off with his $1,500 gold chain and his iPad.
He said he only bothered to go the hospital because a neighbor told him his eye looked bad.
Because he couldn’t see well enough to describe the suspects, he said, he thought there was little use in reporting the crime to law enforcement.
Two deputies drove out to Ownbey’s duplex home June 5 to see the crime scene.
But before they could see the evidence of the robbery, they smelled evidence of another crime: “A strong odor of raw cannabis could be smelled emitting from within the front door of the residence, as well as from the garage area of the residence while standing in the front driveway,” a deputy wrote in a report.
Deputies found a small marijuana grow in one of the units’ garages, according to a Sheriff’s Office log.
Multiple people lived in the building — including one deputies couldn’t find but believe might be another victim in the robbery — and there were no arrests as of the time the deputies submitted their reports on the robbery.
