BRUNSWICK COUNTY, Va. -- An elderly couple had a surprising answer when asked to describe their feelings after a violent home invasion in which they were left for dead.
"I describe it as being thankful, I'm thankful that we're still alive," said the husband who survived the Tuesday ordeal.
A month shy of his 80th birthday, the husband was inside with his wife, in the home they share off Route 1, in the Warfield community.
The doorbell rang about 9 p.m. and when the husband answered, a man at the door said his truck overheated and he needed some water.
The couple held hands and prayed for their lives.
"My wife unlocked it and three of them, just knocked us down," the victim said.
For the next two hours, the 79-year-old man and wife were held hostage in their home, and the three suspects ransacked the house.
"Then they said, is it worth dying for this little money," said the male victim.
He was pistol whipped, and afterward one of the suspects returned from the kitchen with a knife.
The couple were put into the trunk.
"They said I'm going to cut her throat and when they took me downstairs, they said you're going to find her dead".
But instead, the couple is taken downstairs, bound and put into the trunk of their running car, which is parked inside a locked garage.
"We just held hands and prayed," he said.
Brunswick County Sheriff Brian Roberts described the crime as "horrific.”
He added that there was "no doubt that if you bound two elderly people, put them in the trunk of a car in a closed garage, crank the car up, you're certainly leaving them to die -- no doubt".
Sheriff Roberts said if you have any information about what happened to call Crime Solvers at (434) 848-2336.
