Oglethorpe County, Georgia

From the Athens Banner-Herald of January 26, 2005

Fellow clerk recalls similar experience

Oglethorpe County store clerk William Miller heard the news on a police scanner Monday night that a fellow merchant in the same rural county had foiled an armed robbery.

He would have to wait until the next day to learn how Bobby Doster and Gloria Turner thwarted armed robbers at Shoats Grocery and Package Store a few miles down the road. Doster shot and killed two would-be robbers after one of them shot at him, the store owner said.

Miller, a former law officer who ran for sheriff last year, stopped his own robbers two years ago as two masked men entered his store, brandished handguns and announced, "This is a robbery!"

"No, it's not," Miller said as he drew his own gun and opened fire. Miller's father, Jack, owner of the Junction Package store in Crawford, pulled his 16-gauge shotgun and fired off a shot, as well.

The similarities between the two robberies were obvious.

And Miller hopes locals take the same message from this attempted robbery: Fight back.

"Hundreds of people have told me, 'You're my hero,'" Miller said Tuesday, a little more than two years after the attempted robbery of the store his father has owned for more than 20 years.

"The good people who follow the law and live their life right, it should give them some hope," Miller said. "It sends a message that people are tired of being bullied. Go out and get a job."

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From the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer of March 1, 2005

GBI: Store owners who killed teens acted in self defense

Two Oglethorpe County store owners were acting in self defense when they fatally shot two people they said were trying to rob them, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has found.

The GBI's announcement came Monday after a monthlong investigation into the shooting.

Bobby Doster and his wife, Gloria Turner, say one of the teenagers fired at Doster while trying to rob the store Jan. 24. But the couple fired back with guns of their own, killing Michael Dewand Hill, 19, and Calvin Dantrell Ballard, 17.

In a statement, Northern Judicial Circuit District Attorney Bob Lavender, said the investigation is closed and no action will be taken in the case.

"After discussing victim and witness accounts, crime scene documentation and forensic evidence submitted to and examined at the GBI Crime Lab, authorities have concluded that the manner of the deaths were the result of justifiable homicide," Lavender said.