Jumpy teens died in store they came to rob
By SAEED AHMED
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/26/05
The cash register at Shoat's Grocery and Package Store in Oglethorpe County held just $300 Monday when the two teenagers walked in.
If they had been patient, the would-be robbers could have had it.
But, deciding the shopkeepers were too slow in complying with their demands, one of the young men pulled out a gun, igniting a gunbattle with the 62-year-old owner and his wife.
Both teens wound up dead.
"I'd have given it to them. Our insurance would have covered it," said Gloria Turner, who has owned the store for eight years with her husband.
Turner, 56, was rearranging the store, in the tiny community of Hutchins, when the teenagers walked in Monday evening.
One was wearing a wig that partly covered his eyes, prompting Turner to quip, "Can you see to walk with that thing on?"
The teen mumbled something, she recalled. He ran past Turner and shoved her husband, Bobby "Shoats" Doster, against the bakery counter.
The second teen pulled a white skullcap over his face, pushed Turner to the cash register and demanded money.
"I was about to give it to them . . . when the first guy says, 'You're not moving fast enough,' and pulls out a gun," Turner said Tuesday.
The teen aimed the gun at her husband and fired. The bullet missed. His gun jammed.
That was enough for Doster, who pulled out a .380 from his pocket. At the same time, his wife grabbed the 9 mm she kept under under the counter.
Both began firing at the teenagers, who ran to the back of the store for cover. A full-fledged gunbattle erupted.
The teens crouched behind a meat counter. The one with the gun popped up every few seconds to fire another round.
The unarmed teen kept shouting, "Shoot them! Shoot them!" while tossing at the couple whatever items he could get his hands on, Turner said.
The exchange of gunfire lasted less than five minutes "but it felt like hours," Turner said.
She remembered firing with one hand and dialing 911 with the other.
Deputies arrived four minutes later to find the store littered with shell casings. Both teenagers lay sprawled on the floor one shot several times, the other with a bullet in his chest, said Sheriff Mike Smith.
The teens were identified Wednesday as Michael Dewand Hill, 19, and 17-year-old Calvin Dantrell Ballard. Both were from Athens, according to the sheriff.
Turner and her husband will not be charged, Smith said.
"People have a right to protect their lives and their property," Smith said.
"We don't encourage them to take the law in their hands, but sometimes they are left with no other choice."
Turner and her husband moved to Hutchins, an unincorporated community in Oglethorpe County about 80 miles east of Atlanta, to get away from the encroaching development in Winder.
The attempted robbery Tuesday was the first holdup at their little store, which sells everything from alcohol to fishing supplies to sandwiches.
It also was the first robbery in Oglethorpe County in 30 years in which someone was killed, Sheriff Smith said.
"Shoats is a little shaken up by it all, but it hasn't hit me yet," Turner said, cleaning up the store Tuesday.
"I know it will, when I sit down to rest for a minute. They were humans' lives, after all."
