The Cinder Car Mystery

Brother comes back from the dead
by Robert A. Waters

When Theodore Furman walked into his mother’s home on April 5, 1912, he had no idea that the whole town of Middletown, New York thought he'd been murdered. On seeing her son, Ellen Thurmond fainted. Her four other sons jumped up and down, shouting with joy.

Ellen soon revived and told Theodore a bizarre and terrifying tale. On the next day, she said, the Middletown Police Department planned to hold a grand jury hearing in an attempt to indict two of Theodore’s brothers for his murder.

The nineteen-year-old had been missing for five months. During that time, Ellen said, police detectives had “coerced” confessions from Eugene and Joseph.

Two months after Joseph left town, railroad employees found parts of a human corpse in one of the cinder cars. The Sheboygan Press reported that “a human skull, attached to the right shoulder and arm, was found in a car of hot cinders on the Ontario & Western railroad near Middletown on January 8. Theodore Furman, a railroad fireman, had been missing since November 11. A piece of cloth on the charred bones matched a pair of trousers which Theodore Furman had worn. Eugene Furman, seventeen, was arrested and told the police that his brother, Joseph, had killed his brother Theodore in a quarrel and had cut the body up and buried it in the cinder car. Joseph Furman was arrested and said that Eugene had killed Theodore.”

In addition, Ellen had been convicted of forgery for cashing the final check Theodore had drawn on the railroad.

After his arrest, Eugene made numerous contradictory statements, first implicating himself as the killer and then blaming Joseph. The Middletown Daily Times Press reported that “Eugene told several other stories of the crime to the officers, and one thing at least has been settled to the satisfaction of the authorities, and that is that Eugene is gifted with a most fertile imagination.”

In one of his confessions, Eugene stated that he alone had murdered Theodore and cut his body in half. He said he loaded each section of the body onto different cinder cars hoping the intense heat of the burning cinders would incinerate the remains.

Joseph told detectives that he thought Theodore had left town. But after being interrogated for 48 hours without sleep, he said Eugene may have killed his brother.

In a way, Theodore had created this strange series of events. Tiring of his job, he decided to leave his hometown and look for a new profession. Unfortunately, he failed to notify anyone--not even his family.

After returning home, Theodore told reporters that after traveling through New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, he ended up in Philadelphia. While there, he decided to enlist in the army. Since he was only nineteen, the recruiter informed him that he needed his mother’s signature. The recruiter and Theodore wrote to Ellen Thurman asking her to sign the form. Two days later, the recruiter told Theodore he'd received a letter from home with news that he was “missing.”

The wandering boy then hurriedly returned to Middletown and the joyous welcome described above.

Theodore told news reporters that his mother should not have been convicted of forgery. “I did not intend to come back and withdraw what money I had coming from the O & W,” he said. “It was understood at home that they could try and get the money.”

He also said that he thought Eugene was not “exactly right,” which is why his brother continued to change his stories.

An embarrassed police department dropped all plans to charge Eugene and Joseph with Theodore's murder.  Ellen Thurman's conviction was also vacated.

The mysterious remains of the corpse in the cinder car were never identified.

Football Follies

NFL brand is threatened by thuggish players
by Robert A. Waters

Listed below are just a few of the National Football League players who have been arrested this off-season.

Dallas Cowboys star receiver Dez Bryant was accused of beating up his own mother and charged with family violence and assault.

Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch was arrested for DUI.

Wide receiver Kenny Britt of the Tennessee Titans was arrested for DUI.

Denver Broncos defensive end Elvis Dumerville was arrested for aggravated assault with a firearm.

Detroit Lions defensive tackle Corey Williams was charged with DUI.

Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson was arrested for assaulting a police officer outside a nightclub.

Aaron Berry, cornerback of the Detroit Lions, was arrested on two different occacsions, once for DUI and the other for assault.

And that's just a start.

NFL Commish Roger Goodell, aware that “brand” is all-important in the league’s money-making machine, has attempted to stamp out crime among players. But it ain’t working. As long as teams continue to draft criminals, recidivism will continue to stigmatize America’s greatest sport.

While many NFL fans minimize the unlawful actions of their star players, others wonder how multi-millionaires continue to find themselves in legal hot water. Many followers are amazed that the wealthy moguls of the gridiron can’t do the minimum required to keep from getting arrested.

Anybody want to start a Fantasy Football game for suspended ex-cons?

Permit Holder Destroys Armed Robbers

The Shootist
by Robert Waters

On July 13, 2012, two robbers barged into Palms Internet Cafe in Ocala, Florida. You could tell they thought they looked cool, wearing hoodies fitted with masks. As customers held up their hands or ducked for cover, Davis Dawkins beat computers into submission with a baseball bat while DuWayne Henderson rushed forward, pointing a handgun at the crowd.

It could have been a disaster--two armed thugs pumped up with adrenalin inside a playhouse with 30 senior citizens. Just picture the bodies lying like cordwood on the slick-tiled floor.

But, fortunately, some stories have happy endings.

The robbers were so busy playing cool they didn't see Sam Williams, 71, rise out of his chair and draw a .380 semi-automatic pistol. After making sure no customers were within the line of fire, Williams moved forward.

The sudden crack of gunfire startled the hoods. Panicked, they fled. Williams kept firing as the two tripped over themselves trying to get out the door. They dropped the gun, the bat, and a backpack. So cops should have plenty of physical evidence to convict them.

The suspects, both 19, were treated at a Gainesville hospital. Dawkins received a superficial wound to his shoulder while Henderson suffered the ignominious fate of having been drilled in the butt, as well as the hip.  They were both charged with attempted robbery with a firearm and criminal mischief.

Bill Gladson, assistant state attorney general, wrote that Sam Williams’ “use of force was lawful under Florida's statutes regarding individuals rights to use deadly force when resisting a forcible felony, like a robbery.”

Most hailed him a hero. And rightfully so.

Henderson consented to an interview with the Ocala Star Banner.  He and Dawkins planned to commandeer all the cellphones, he said, so no one there could call police.

Henderson claimed his “gun was broken and rusty and wasn’t loaded. Nobody was going to get hurt.” (Of course, if that were true, no one at the business could have known.)

After Williams opened fire, Henderson said, “I turned around to run and my leg gave out. That was when I got shot. I hit the ground, and he was still shooting. I thought I was going to die. By the grace of God, [my] leg came back. I ran.”

Henderson was critical of Williams, who continued shooting while he was on the floor. “I was down, and I’m not going to continue to shoot you,” he said.

One of the great things about the Internet is that it has helped to change the dynamics of the gun control debate. Twenty years ago, anti-gunners could minimize the use of guns for self-defense. (New York Senator Chuck Schumer once famously quipped to gun-rights advocates that their stories of self-defense were mere “anecdotes.”) Today, that argument no longer flies. A quick Google search at any one time reveals hundreds of such cases.

Since Palms Internet Café had video surveillance, Williams’ brief burst of heroism made national news.

Take that, Senator Schumer.

    Davis Dawkins            Duwayne Henderson

Murder and Mayhem in 1912

Headlines from 100 years ago

by Robert A. Waters

*****

BOOTY OF TRAIN ROBBERY AMOUNTED TO $200,000

Thirty packages of Currency Known to Have Been in Safe on Train.

Waterloo Reporter
May 15, 1912

New Orleans--Robbers who held up a Queen and Crescent express train near Hattiesburg, Miss. yesterday got at least $200,000, according to best information obtainable here today. It is positively known that from the safe which was blown open, the bandit got more than thirty packages of currency, one of which contained in excess of $50.000. One [other] package of currency contained $140,000, according to an express messenger.

******

Eight Babies Slain

Woman is Accused of Wholesale Murder of Infants

Associated Press
February 24, 1912

Winifred Anders, a nurse in the Brooklyn [New York] nursery and infants hospital, was held in the Brooklyn court today without bail on a charge of having caused the death of eight babies by putting oxalic acid in their milk.

Detectives who arrested the woman claim that she made a full confession but the motive for the terrible series of crimes is a mystery. The woman appeared in court indifferent and pleaded to have a baby, that she claims is her own, restored to her.

*****

An 18-Year Sentence Given to Two Boys by Judge Grimm Today

BERGER AND MEYER GO TO WAUPUN AT HARD LABOR FOR LONG PERIOD FOR MURDER OF TILLY BERGSTERMAN. SENTENCE EXPECTED.

Prisoners for First Time Appeared to Realize Enormity of Their Crime and Stood With Heads Bowed As Sentence Was Passed.

Janesville Daily Gazette
November 25, 1912

Edward Meyer, aged 19, and Harry Berger, aged 17, convicted of rape and of third degree murder when they caused the death of Tilly Bergsterman September 30, last were each sentenced to 18 years at hard labor at the state's prison at Waupun by Judge George Grimm at the circuit court this afternoon. The first day only of their imprisonment shall be in solitary confinement.

The two boys stood before the bar of justice with heads bowed down and were more deeply affected than at any time during their extended trial. They arrived in the court room accompanied by Turnkey Philo Kemp shortly before two o'clock and sat quietly until court was called. They glanced neither to the right nor left and paid no heed to the large audience which filled the court room.

A hush fell over the court room when Judge Grimm rapped for order and ordered Sheriff Ransom to open court for their sentence. "You each stand convicted of the crime of third degree murder and of rape," said Judge Grimm. “Have you, Edward Meyer, any reason to give why sentence should not be passed?” Meyer's head hung lower and [he] shook it negatively. “Have you, Harry Berger?” He had none.

Book Review - By the Noble Daring of Her Sons: The Florida Brigade of the Army of Tennessee

Guest Review by Zack C. Waters

By the Noble Daring of Her Sons: The Florida Brigade of the Army of Tennessee
Author: Jonathan C. Sheppard
University of Alabama Press
2012

Jonathan C. Sheppard introduces us to George Hartsfield in the opening line of his book, By the Noble Daring of Her Sons. The illiterate Cracker farmer, who owned no slaves and scratched a meager living from a hardscrabble farm, had already survived the horrible bloodletting at Perryville, Kentucky. Hartsfield’s luck ran out at Murfreesboro, Tennessee on the 1st day of January, 1863. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Middle Tennessee.

The record of the Florida Confederates who endured combat in the Army of the Heartland (in other words, those who did not fight in Virginia or in “The Land of Flowers”) closely resembles that of George Hartsfield. They fought hard, won few victories, and were quickly forgotten.

With the nation celebrating the 150th anniversary of our Civil War, the Florida troops, who served in Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and North Carolina, have finally found a worthy historian to tell their story.

By the Noble Daring of Her Sons provides a wonderful account of the battles the Floridians fought, from Shiloh to Nashville, but even more interesting is the cast of characters we meet along the way. Samuel Pasco, for example, was born in England, raised in Canada and Massachusetts, and sent by Harvard University to teach school in Jefferson County, Florida two years prior to war. The teacher joined the Confederate army with his students, served until captured at Missionary Ridge, and despite the pleading of his family (who had the clout to have him released), endured fifteen months of horror at the Federal prison of Camp Morton. He would become a political heavyweight in postwar Florida, even having a county named for him.

Equally intriguing is Colonel D. L. Kenan, a lowly wheelwright, who led the Florida boys in their final fight of the war, losing his leg (to amputation) only thirty miles from his home town. In this highly readable book, the reader meets a host of interesting characters who will bring the units and the men who served them to life.

I highly recommend By the Noble Daring of Her Sons. Well-written and researched, it reveals again the truth that history can be fun, and that, despite a million-plus books on the well-worn topic of the War Between the States, there is a great deal that we don’t know about the defining point in our national history.

This was the battle flag of the Florida Independent Blues, Company B, 3rd Florida Infantry.  The regiment was formed near Pensacola in July, 1861.  They fought at Perryville, Murfreesboro, Jackson, Chickamauga, and Bentonville.  The carnage to this small company of Florida troops was horrendous, and few were left to surrender in April, 1865.


Zack C. Waters is an acclaimed author of many articles about the Civil War.  His latest book, A Small But Spartan Band: The Florida Brigade in Lee's Army of Northern Viriginia, became an instant classic and won the coveted Charlton Tebeau Award for best book on Florida history in 2011.

Missing from Ocala, Florida

The Mansfield Clubber

Killer was never caught
by Robert A. Waters

Sixty-five-year-old George Marginean was a nobody.

He lived in a converted garage behind a small grocery market at 328 Grace Street in Mansfield, Ohio. The store's owner, Peter Such, and his wife took care of the feeble old man. In coming days, local newspapers would call Marginean “a frugal and temperate man" who had little money. Around town he was known as a hermit. In fact, he lived hand-to-mouth on city relief.

Even though he lived in deperate circumstances, Marginean had a dream.

It was 1942, and war raged in his home country of Romania. It seemed to the old man that his country was always at war. Nazis. Bolsheviks. Communists. It didn’t matter, they all seemed to love killing. He had two sons in that dangerous faraway land, but hadn’t heard from them in months.

On September 25, Mrs. Such and her son Emil walked over to the make-shift apartment to take food to Marginean. Emil, the first to enter the room, found Marginean dead.

The Mansfield News Journal reported that “police said Marginean was apparently asleep when his assailant crept into his home and struck him with a blunt instrument. There were two blows on the forehead and one across the nose. Because of Marginean's financial circumstances and the fact that nothing in the place was disturbed, officers ruled out all possibilities of robbery.”

Several neighbors informed police that they had seen a tall, thin stranger in the alley beside Marginean’s garage. Despite appeals, the man never came forward and investigators were never able to track him down.

A background check revealed that Marginean had come to the United States 27 years earlier. He’d moved to Mansfield 15 years before, after working in Willard, Ohio as a railroad section hand. In addition to his meager welfare check, he occasionally worked odd jobs around town.

The News Journal reminded readers of a previous unsolved crime: “Marginean's murder recalled the slaying of Sherman Reed, aged WPA worker in his three-room cottage on Seventh Ave. on March 30, 1938. Both men were found slain in their small homes where they lived alone. Both were killed by blows on the head from heavy instruments. Sheriff Frank E. Robinson, in office at the time of the Marginean murder and deputy at the time of Reed's murder, theorized the two men might have been slain by the same person.”

No suspects ever emerged in Marginean’s killing. It was as if a phantom appeared, snuffed out the old man's life, and vanished like smoke.

Marginean’s dream died with him. His single, obsessive hope in life had been to become a naturalized citizen of his adopted country. He’d taken the test twice, but had failed both times, possibly due to a language barrier. The News Journal reported that on the day the old man died “he’d been studying to prepare himself to pass the next citizenship examination.”

George Marginean's brief, inconsequential time on earth was soon forgotten.

Life is not always kind, and sometimes dreams die lonely in the night.

Buried Alive

True stories from the shadow of death…
by Robert A. Waters

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? “The Premature Burial,” Edgar Allan Poe.


Before the development of embalming technology, those thought to have stopped breathing were pronounced dead, placed in a grave, and buried. If they were lucky, a competent physician would make the pronouncement. If they were unlucky, well…let’s just say it’s no wonder that premature burial was once dreaded by the living.

The following story, printed in the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette on February 9, 1884, describes the horror of a hasty interment.

Buried Alive.
A Dayton, Ohio, Maiden Suffers Horrible Death.
The Opening of the Coffin Discovers the Frightful Fact—An Awful Struggle for Life.

“A sensation has been created here by the discovery of the fact that Miss Hockwalt [sic. Hochwalt], a young woman of high social connections, who was supposed to have died suddenly January 10, was buried alive. The horrible truth was discovered a few days ago, and since then it has been the talk of the city. The circumstances of Miss. Hockwalt's death were peculiar. It occurred the morning of the marriage of her brother to Miss Emma Schwind, at Immanuel's church. Shortly before 8 o'clock the young lady was dressing for the nuptials and had gone into the kitchen. A few moments afterward she was found sitting on a chair with her head leaning against the wall and apparently lifeless. Medical aid was summoned. Dr. Jewett, after examination, pronounced her dead. Mass was being read at the time in Immanuel church, and it was proposed to postpone the wedding, but Father Haane thought best to continue, and the wedding was consummated in gloom by low mass. An examination showed that Anna was of excitable temperament, nervous and afflicted with sympathetic palpitation of the heart. Dr. Jewett thought this the cause of death. The following day the girl was interred in Woodland [Cemetery]. The friends of Miss Hockwalt were unable to forget the terrible impression, and several ladies observed that her ears bore a remarkably natural color, and could not dispel the idea that she was not dead. They conveyed their opinion to Anna's parents, and the thought preyed upon them so that the body was taken from the grave.

“It is stated that when the coffin was opened it was discovered that the supposed inanimate body had turned upon its right side. The hair of the head had been torn out in handfuls and the flesh of the fingers had been bitten from the bones. The body was reinterred and efforts made to conceal the case, but there are those who state that they saw the body and know the truth of the facts narrated.”

A second case was reported in American Weekly in 1930. The article, entitled “Safeguards Against Being Buried Alive,” read:

“One of the most pathetic cases is that of Mrs. Catherine Boger, of Morrison's, near White Haven, Pa. A year after her marriage in 1892, Mrs. Boger was taken ill and ‘died.’ Dr. James Willard, the family physician, made several tests to make sure that death had taken place, and Mrs. Boger was buried. Sometime afterwards a friend informed Boger that his wife had been subject to periodic hysteria and suggested that she might have been buried alive. This thought haunted Boger until he became practically insane and to pacify him it was arranged that the grave should be reopened.

“To the shock of Boger's friends his fears were proved correct. The woman had been buried alive. The body was turned face downward. The glass in the lid of the coffin was broken. The burial robes had been torn to shreds and bruises and gashes in the woman's flesh showed where she had torn herself in frenzy upon discovering her hopeless situation.”

Beginning in the early 18th century, many wealthy people attempted to devise some system that would alert others if they were interred before actually dying. Usually, these schemes included constructing wires inside the casket attached to outside bells that could be rung in case the dead person awoke.

Skeptics insist that many of the examples of those disinterred who seemed to have injuries associated with being buried alive were actually the effects of decomposition. However, there have been enough documented cases to know that such horrible burials did indeed occur. And the law of averages would imply that of the trillions of persons buried throughout history, some would not have been dead.

How many crime victims have been buried alive? This will never be known, since many bodies will never be discovered.

Listed below are a few modern victims whose remains were found—prematurely entombed.

1987: Stephen Small, 39, media mogul from Kankakee, Illinois, was abducted from his home and held for ransom. The kidnappers, Danny Edwards and Nancy Rish, were quickly caught and led FBI agents to a plywood box buried in the ground near their home. Small’s body, still handcuffed, lay in the home-made coffin. Beside him were a flashlight, water, and candy. A PVC pipe designed to provide air was too small, and the victim suffocated. Edwards was sentenced to death, while Rish got life. In 2003, Illinois governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of everyone on death row, so Edwards escaped justice. (Former Governor Ryan is currently serving a six year sentence after being convicted of racketeering, bribery, extortion, money laundering, and tax fraud.)

2005: An elderly invalid couple was abducted from their Jacksonville, Florida home and buried in a previously-prepared grave. Carol and Reggie Sumner had been robbed and buried alive. Tiffany Cole, Alan Wade, Michael Jackson, and Bruce Nixon were convicted of the horrific crime—each received dual death sentences.

2005: Jessica Lunsford was kidnapped from her Florida home by John Evander Couey, a registered sex offender. After repeatedly raping her for three days, Couey stuffed Jessica into plastic bags and buried her alive beside his trailer. When found, her finger was sticking out of the bag and she was holding her favorite stuffed animal. Couey was convicted of murder but cheated the executioner by dying in prison.

2009: Five-year-old Nevaeh Buchanan was reported missing in Munroe, Michigan. Eleven days later, she was found encased in cement beside the River Raisin. Investigators said she was buried alive and died by inhaling dirt. No one has been charged in her murder.

How Could They Lose the Bones of Amelia Earhart?

“Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight”
by Robert A. Waters

Seventy-five years later, the mystery still fascinates. What happened to Amelia Earhart?

A new expedition is headed to Gardner Island (now known as Nikumaroro) to resume previous searches for evidence that she landed there after running out of fuel. The International Group for Historical Research (TIGHAR) will use underwater robots with multi-beam sonar to scan the reefs around the previously uninhabited coral atoll. Members of the group hope to find the remains of Earhart’s plane.

Several clues point to Gardner Island as the likely place Earhart and Fred Noonan went down on July 2, 1937. A series of Murphy’s Law-type mistakes had brought them there. The final, fatal error may have been Earhart’s unfamiliarity with (or damage to) her new direction-finding loop antenna. A radio crew on the U. S. Coast Guard ship Itasca was  responsible for guiding her to Howland Island--unfortunately, they could hear Earhart’s messages, but she couldn’t hear theirs.

At 7:42 a.m., Earhart’s transmission came in loud and clear: “We must be on you, but cannot see you – but gas is running low. Have been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet.”  More than an hour later, at 8:43, Earhart radioed: “We are on the line 157/337.” Her transmissions soon faded, and the aviatrix vanished into the fog of history.

The evidence that she and Noonan may have landed on or near Gardner Island is not compelling yet, but certainly hopeful. Jeremy Hsu, of Innovation News Daily, wrote: “Several expeditions [have] uncovered items that could have belonged to Earhart, along with signs of survival living. Such items include a jar that likely contained Dr. Berry's Freckle Ointment (Earhart was known for disliking her freckles), a hand lotion bottle marketed to women in the 1930s, and a bone-handled knife matching the description of a knife listed in Earhart's aircraft inventory.”

Possibly the most intriguing find is now lost. According to Hsu’s report, a team of researchers from TIGHAR “also dug up old paperwork from a British colonial physician who described human bones recovered from the island — bones that belonged to a woman fitting Amelia Earhart's profile, according to modern analysis.” Somehow, soon after the partial skeleton was sent to Fiji for analysis, it disappeared. This tantalizing find remains as lost as Earhart herself.

More recently, human bone fragments found on the island were tested for DNA, but came back inconclusive.

The theory that Earhart and Noonan crash-landed near Gardner Island will be put to the test beginning July 2nd when TIGHAR begins its search. New technology may finally put an end to this enduring mystery.

As with the sinking of the Titanic 25 years earlier, folk singers were quick to memorialize the tragedy.

Shortly after reading the news about Earhart’s lost flight, Texas singer Red River Dave wrote a song entitled Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight. The ballad soon became a country music standard, and is still played and recorded. It is thought to have been the first song ever performed on a live television broadcast when Dave sang it during the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

http://youtu.be/tAvtHMJS1O8

AMELIA EARHART'S LAST FLIGHT
Red River Dave (McEnery)

A ship out on the ocean, just a speck against the sky,
Amelia Earhart flying that sad day;
With her partner, Captain Noonan, on the second of July,
Her plane fell in the ocean, far away.

CHORUS: There's a beautiful, beautiful field
Far away in a land that is fair.
Happy landings to you, Amelia Earhart,
Farewell, first lady of the air.

Well, half an hour later, an SOS was heard,
The signal weak, but still her voice was brave.
In shark-infested waters, her plane went down that night,
In the blue Pacific to a watery grave.

CHORUS

Now you have heard my story of that awful tragedy.
We pray that she might fly home safe again.
In years to come though others blaze a trail across the sea,
We'll ne'er forget Amelia and her plane.

CHORUS

Self-Defense Files # 5

Jewelry store owners fight back
by Robert A. Waters

A recent story caught my attention. In San Ramon, California, four robbers burst into the Gold N Treasures jewelry store. When one assailant brandished a handgun, the owner, Everett Parvin, pulled his own weapon. Kibrom Bairu [pictured above] died at the scene from a single gunshot to the chest. Cops said Parvin acted in self-defense.

Less than a month earlier, in nearby Vallejo, another thug died. Serial robber Tremont Dejuan Williams, 37, entered Carillo’s Jewelry Store, pulled out a gun, and jumped over the counter. As the owner’s wife frantically called 911, the would-be bandit rushed into the office of the owner. Bad mistake. The jeweler shot and killed Williams, ending a long and violent career of jewelry heists. The owner was not charged.

Many jewelers are armed. Their lives and livelihood depend on being able to defend themselves and their property.

A couple of years back, in Houston, Texas, a wild-west style shootout at Castillo’s Jewelry left three robbers dead and the owner of the store wounded.

The business sat in a high-crime neighborhood on Canal Street. It had bars on the windows and electronic locks on the door so customers could be buzzed in and out. Surveillance cameras in strategic locations monitored traffic.

On December 16, 2010, Ramon Castillo buzzed two men into his store. His wife, Eva, attended to them as they browsed. Soon, a third man posing as a customer was let in. When he entered, all three suddenly pulled guns and, in Spanish, announced that they were robbing the business.

One robber forced Ramon and Eva toward a back room while the other two began looting the store. The robber tied Eva to a chair. But as he attempted to zip-tie Ramon’s hands, the store owner reached behind his back, pulled a pistol from his waistband, and shot the robber dead.

As soon as they saw their cohort fall, the robbers at the counter opened up with semi-automatic pistols. Ramon returned fire, all the while making his way from the office back to the counter. Hit in the shoulder, abdomen, and legs, he reached beneath the counter and grabbed a shotgun. At that moment, the tide of battle changed. Ramon blasted the two remaining robbers dead.

Blood, bodies, glass, and bullet casings greeted police when they arrived.

Even though he’d been shot multiple times, Ramon Castillo, like an old-time gun-fighter, was still standing.

Eva was uninjured. Ramon, transported to the hospital, spent several days in the intensive care unit. He eventually recovered from his wounds.

Two of the robbers, Nelson Tambora-Ramiro, 21, and Onilton Castillano, 38, had Honduran passports, and were thought to have been in the country illegally. The third robber was never identified.

A day after the shooting, the children of Ramon and Eva Castillo released the following statement: “On Thursday, December 16th, our parents were the victims of a horrible crime that resulted in critical injuries to　our father, Ramon Castillo. Words cannot express our outrage at this needless act of violence. However, we are not surprised that our father chose to fight back against these attackers to save his property and most of all, to protect our mother and his wife of 30 years, Eva. We are extremely proud of our father for his heroic efforts and believe that he will make a full recovery. We appreciate the many words of encouragement and concern that we’ve received and ask for your continued prayers for our father’s full recovery. We do ask for some privacy during this critical and painful time.”

Sometimes the good guys win.