Blair – A Jenkinsville man narrowly escaped injury and four men were arrested earlier this month after a botched armed robbery attempt outside a night spot in Blair.
According to the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office, the victim, a 31-year-old man from Straight Shot Road in Jenkinsville, was sitting in his Cadillac DeVille outside the Pool Room on Brooks Drive just after 10 p.m. Jan. 5 when a masked man wearing a hoodie and armed with a rifle approached the car. The victim said the suspect shouted at him to “give up the money.” The victim told Sheriff’s investigators that he told the suspect he did not have any money on him, that his money was in the trunk of the car. The victim said the suspect then called to another suspect, instructing him to retrieve the money from the trunk of the Cadillac. While still being held at gunpoint by the masked suspect, the victim watched and waited as the second suspect began plundering the trunk. When the masked suspect looked away for a brief moment, the victim threw the Cadillac into gear and sped off amid a hail of gunfire.
The victim stopped a few miles away on Highway 215 N. and noticed a bullet hole in the dashboard of the car. The victim’s cell phone also began ringing, he said, with calls from the suspects telling him they were coming to find him at his home. The suspects also tried to get the victim to meet them at Salem Crossroads. While the victim told investigators that he did not know the suspects, he did have the phone number from which they had been calling. That phone number and a similar incident in the same area on the same night led investigators to a list of four names.
Monterri Ladever Wright, 18, of Dave Cole Road in Blair; Zachary Danzell Rivers, 18, of Springwoods Lake Drive in Columbia; and Clifton Rashad Hendrix, 21, of Brooks Drive in Blair all turned themselves in at the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office Jan. 9 and admitted to their involvement in the armed robbery attempt. A fourth suspect, Mercury Lamont Williamson Jr., 19, also of Brooks Drive in Blair, later turned himself in at the Fairfield County Detention Center. All four have been charged with attempted armed robbery.
