COLONIAL HEIGHTS, Va. – Johnny Seymour was robbed and assaulted early Tuesday morning.
He said he told the gunman: "Straight up honest, I said I don't want to die."
He said he tried to cooperate but that didn't work out.
They grabbed his glasses and then he said, “the guy hit me on the side of my jaw with the gun."
Then he said they demanded his cellphone and didn't believe him when he said he didn’t have one.
“So the guy hit me in the back of the head with the gun," Seymour said.
He said more than once they threatened to kill him.
Then, when it was over, as one suspect was taking off and the other was too, he said, "I don't know if the guy is walking backwards or he turned around and he shot me."
The bullet went into Seymour’s his back, through his stomach and out his front.
He ended up with three staples in the back of his head, a laceration and a swollen jaw from being smacked with the gun.
Twelve hours later Colonial Heights Police had three men in custody.
Wayne Jackson, age 22, is charged with robbery and malicious wounding in the attack on Johnny Seymour.
He and two others, 19-year-old Hodari Taylor and 26-year-old Michael Walker, are also charged with attempted robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery for the Saturday morning incident where a newspaper carrier was shot at but not hit.
The three men are also charged with malicious wounding, use of a gun in a felony and robbery for a similar crime in Prince George County.
Both Chesterfield County and Petersburg Police believe the men may be connected to similar crimes in their jurisdictions.
As for Johnny Seymour, he said luck had nothing to do with his survival.
"When I said I don't want to die, somebody told me…somebody said you're not going to die,” he recollected. “I feel like God was with me all the way."