http://www.macon.com/mld/telegraph/3721658.htm
Posted on Wed, Jul. 24, 2002
Woman fends off robbers with shotgun
By Wayne Crenshaw
Telegraph Staff Writer

CARY – A woman thwarted two masked, gun-wielding, would-be robbers
Tuesday after they entered her country store and demanded money.

Bleckley County Sheriff Harold Lancaster said Andrea Howell, owner of
Willis Howell Grocery, stopped the robbers when she pulled a shotgun on
them.

“She’s an elderly lady, but she’s quite feisty,” said Lancaster.

The two men entered the store about noon wearing ski masks, and one had
a gun. When they demanded money, Howell pulled out a shotgun. The
robbers ran out of the store.

Howell, 67, is a widow and operates the small, country-style store on
Willis Howell Road.
Lancaster told her pulling the gun was the wrong thing to do, but he
also said he couldn’t blame her, either.

“To a certain extent, I admire her,” he said. “She said ‘They just
wasn’t going to come in here and take what I had.’”

The two men fled on foot. Tracking dogs from Dodge Correctional
Institute were called to the scene, and the dogs tracked the suspects
for about 100 yards from the store, where Lancaster believes they got in
a car and fled.

He said there are no suspects, but the case is still being investigated.

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