This is the perfect example of why it’s such a great idea to be armed. This woman was attacked by these two thugs and could have been killed had it not been for her son who was carrying. The gun grabbers can talk all they want about gun control but this is a citizen’s right and a prime reason for it.
AWENDAW, S.C. (WCIV) — Wearing ski masks and dark clothing, police say two men attacked 79-year-old Mary Rancourt at her own restaurant.
“It was brutal,” Rancourt’s son Tim Penninger said. “It was like, like — it was like a terrorist attack.”
Police say Rancourt was knocked to the ground at SeeWee Restaurant and held down the night of August 20th. She was carrying a bag of $3,000 in cash.
“I’m certainly very glad my son was here, was there that night,” Rancourt said. “I really, I don’t think I’d be alive if he had not been there that night.”
Penninger said he believes the attack was planned — and unnecessary.
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“The money — they could have gotten the money and run off,” Penninger said. “If they’d have run off into the dark like that nobody would have ever seen those people again.”
Penninger fired seven shots from his pistol when he heard his mother scream for help. The two suspects took off running. Police say one man jumped into a maroon SUV. The other ran into the woods.
Charleston County Sheriff’s deputies arrested and charged Eugene Ricky Perry with strong-arm robbery this week.
“If they had masks, how do you know it was me?” Perry asked at bond court.
Perry was given a $125,000 bond. Rancourt’s attorney said Perry has a record with three felony convictions.
“They didn’t need to do what they did,” Penninger said. “If they’d have come here and said ‘I need whatever.’ She’d have done it. She’s done it too many times to say no.”
Rancourt has run SeeWee Restaurant for 25 years.
“This was really the first thing in Awendaw that anybody could say — let’s go to Seewee,” Rancourt’s daughter-in-law Julia Penninger said.
It’s a landmark — a pillar of this community.
“She thought it was just gonna be a little thing on the side of the road where she’d serve a few people everyday and that’d be about it,” Penninger said.
But family said Rancourt has been able to do a lot over the years to help this community grow.
“I think it’s her life blood,” Penninger said. “That’s what she enjoys. She’s handed out food. She’s helped people with food supplies. Anything. Anybody that needs something knows they can come here and ask for it within reason and they’ll probably get it.”
So no on knows how a band of would-be robbers could have the audacity to attack Rancourt.
“I am in fear,” she said. “I’ll probably be in fear the rest of my life because of this.”
Police are still looking for a second suspect in this attack. Penninger said there was also a lookout and a driver involved.
VIA: ABCNEWS
