It's the last place Melissa Carlton wanted to spend her Friday, testifying in court just feet away from the suspects who have been accused of holding her, her husband, her teenage son, and his friend at gun point.
"He acted like we had a choice in the matter. 'I'm going to give a choice of what car we take. I'm going to give a choice of doing this.' It wasn't a choice. We never asked for these people to come into our home and put us through this and give us nightmares and make us feel unsafe in our own home," Carlton testified.
It was in the early morning hours on a Sunday in September. Everyone inside the home on Neelys Bend Road were asleep as police said Jeffrey McNew and Sadie Arnold made their way into the home through the kitchen window. The Carlton's awoke to a gun pointed at them.
"The male suspect ordered me to get out of the bed, and he was asking for, did we have a safe, did we have jewelry, did we have cash? He took all of our cell phones. He said we'll give these back, but we can't have you calling the police," Carlton said.
During the altercation investigators said the two forced Melissa's husband to drive to an ATM and withdraw hundreds of dollars before he was let go back at his home, and the two drove off in his truck. They quickly ditched that truck for another getaway vehicle a short time later and then crashed that vehicle and wound up at the hospital where investigators caught up with them.
"We have a lot of information that leads us to believe we have the right two people, and in preliminary hearing like this, a lot of the times they do get bound over," Detective James Bledsoe said.
The judge ordered the case be bound over to a grand jury. McNew remained in custody, while Arnold was out on bond. As a part of her bond, the judge ordered her to stay away from Neelys Bend Road.
