Three teens and a 21-year-old who allegedly terrorized an elderly woman and nine children in Hall County were denied bond during first appearance hearing Thursday afternoon in Hall County Magistrate Court.
Each defendant is charged with one count of armed robbery and 10 counts of aggravated assault. They will continue to be held pending a a committal hearing scheduled for March 26, according to Sgt. Stephen Wilbanks of the Hall County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched about 10:40 p.m. Tuesday to a home invasion on the 900 block of Cooley Drive, Wilbanks said.
There, they were told four men had entered the home and held an 80-year-old woman and nine juveniles at gunpoint. The intruders ransacked the house and demanded money and electronics, but left without taking anything. No one was injured.
The woman, Delores Velasquez, told Channel 2 Action News on Thursday how four masked gunmen broke down the door to her house, held a gun to her head and terrorized her grandchildren and several neighborhood youngsters who also were in the home.
“I wasn’t afraid for myself, but for the children,” Velasquez said in Spanish.
Fifteen-year-old Antonia Santos told Channel 2, “There were three men in the door with a gun. They put the gun to my head."
Yet she was able to slip away from the intruders, hide in her room and call police. When the intruders discovered her on the phone, she said, “They asked me if I called someone, and I said no. They put the gun again to my head.”
Antonia said she recognized one of the men from school and from riding the bus.
“It was so scary,” Antonia said.
After the men left, a sheriff’s deputy spotted a white Buick automobile on Black Drive with no headlights and tried to stop the car, Wilbanks said. The vehicle’s occupants jumped out and ran. A K-9 team responded and tracked the suspects to a house on Jordan Drive.
“Four male subjects were arrested at that location without incident,” Wilbanks said in a news release. "Two weapons were recovered from the vehicle, and two more were later located in an abandoned residence on Jordan Drive.”
Arrested were Dustin Jones, 17, and Na-Torriocquie Glenn, 18, both of Gainesville, and two brothers, Joseph Berry, 18, and Marquis Berry, 21, of Oakwood, Wilbanks said. All four were booked into Hall County Jail.
The sheriff’s Criminal Investigations Division continues to investigate the incident.
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