Sandlick, Virginia



From Dickenson County’s Coalfield.com of December 22, 2004

Elderly victim shoots intruder



After being shot in the leg and scared that he and his wife would would be killed by the two men who had held them hostage for two hours as they ransacked their home, Clyde Colley decided to defend his life and home, investigators say.



Now, one Kentucky man is dead and another is in jail on a long list of charges. Colley, 84, is in Dickenson Community Hospital recovering from the gunshot wound.



At about 8:40 p.m. on Dec. 14, a caller reported to 911 dispatch that a man had been shot at the Colley residence. Dickenson County sheriff's deputies were sent to the home on Route 80 between Haysi High School and Birchleaf.



When officers Scottie Owens and Brett Stallard arrived at the Colley home, they found Hubert Howard Jr., 39, of Letcher County, Ky., dead from a gunshot wound to the head. Police say the shot was fired from a .38-caliber special that belongs to Colley.



Colley was also wounded, suffering a shot to his calf from a .25 caliber gun allegedly fired by one of the intruders. The man accused of shooting Colley, 24-year-old Mazel Sexton, also of Letcher County, had fled the home but was later arrested by local authorities in Kentucky, according to sheriff's investigator John Hall.



Sexton is charged with two counts of robbery, two counts of abduction, two counts of burglary, maliciously shooting with intent to kill, use of a firearm while committing a felony and unlawfully shooting Colley in the commission of a felony.