MEMPHIS, TN (abc24.com) - Carjacked at gunpoint, kidnapped, then dumped in a Walgreens parking lot, one Memphis man says he's lucky to be alive.
Barry Horne says the attacker "hit me in the back of the head, the $10 I had on me he took that." It wasn't the way Horne expected he'd be taking his lunch break.
Poplar Tower's maintenance man typically eats lunch in his gray 2005 Pontiac Grand Prix at the Kroger parking lot at Kirby and Poplar in Germantown, just a few miles from his work. Friday it was the wrong place and wrong time. "This day I just rolled my window down," Horne says, "The guy jumped up with a gun, he pointed it and said get out of the car."
Police say his attacker was a possible burglary suspect, one of four who were trying to escape the cops. That's when the suspect saw his target. "I got out for a second," Horne recalls, "He says now get back in, he hit me on the back of the head, made me scoot over to the passenger side. He took the car. As we were driving he kept telling me to look the other way."
The kidnapping only lasted a few blocks, then the attacker dropped Horne off at the corner Poplar and Massey in East Memphis. As the suspect sped off, Horne was so shaken he didn't see where the driver or his car went. "I just got robbed, my car was stolen, I mean, you name it. Part of me is mad, frustrated, mad at myself because I couldn't do anything. I couldn't fight the guy off, I'm standing here right now with no car, waiting on my wife to show up."
For a moment, he wasn't sure if he would ever see his wife again. "He could have shot me but he didn't so I'm grateful for that, but it doesn't take away the fact that my car is gone."
Two of the four robbery suspects are in custody.
