Hutchins, Georgia



From the Athens’ Banner-Herald of January 26, 2005

Robbers shot dead



Athens teens killed in 'self-defense'



Two Athens teens engaged a pair of Oglethorpe County store owners in a shootout during a botched robbery Monday afternoon and lost, both paying with their lives.



Bobby Doster and Gloria Turner said they opened fire on the robbers after one of them complained Turner was too slow in handing over money from the cash register. He turned and fired at Doster, missing the 62-year-old owner of Shoat's Grocery and Package Store at the corner of Georgia Highway 77 and Hutchins-Wolfskin Road.



When the gunman's pistol jammed while squeezing the trigger repeatedly, Doster said, he took his own gun out of his overalls and fired as both robbers ran toward the back of the store. The store owner was joined by his common-law wife of 30 years, who said she managed to get off at least two or three shots from the 9 mm handgun kept behind the counter.



The gun-wielding robber was shot and collapsed behind a meat counter at the rear of the store, and his accomplice ran into a bathroom, apparently thinking it was an exit, said Turner, who has owned the store with Doster for eight years.



When the man emerged from the bathroom, he began throwing bottles at Doster as the shop owner advanced on him, hitting Doster in the head with a bottle of soy sauce. The would-be robber then tried to turn over his mortally wounded accomplice, making the store owner think he was going for the gun that was under his friend's body.



"Hit the floor - stay on the floor and don't get up," Doster said he told the man. "He wouldn't get down, so I shot him. The way I see it, it was self-defense because they were intending to kill us. There's no doubt in my mind about that."



When sheriff's deputies arrived, one robber's body lay on top of the other, and attempts to revive them failed. They were pronounced dead at the scene.



Neither robber was identified Tuesday, but after running their fingerprints through a national fingerprint data base for known offenders, they were determined to be Athens residents, one 17 years old and the other 19, according to Oglethorpe County Sheriff Mike Smith.



Authorities are withholding the identities until the teens' next of kin are notified, Smith said.



The sheriff said the Georgia tag on the robber's Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme is "bogus," and that a second tag found inside the car had a Clarke County sticker and was registered to an Athens resident. That resident was not one of the men who was shot, Smith said.



Neither of the store owners would be charged, Smith said, calling the shootings a clear case of self-defense.



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