MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A typical night turned into an unimaginable nightmare for an East Memphis family last week.
They were held at gunpoint and robbed as their two young children slept.
“We were doing laundry, about to go to bed,” said one of the victims, who didn’t want to be identified.
That’s when she and her boyfriend heard the glass shatter on a side door at their Boyce Road home.
“We heard all this going on, so we, like, barricaded ourselves in our bedroom,” the victim said.
The crooks left, but then returned minutes later.
They got past a washing machine used to barricade the side door and then kicked down the couple’s bedroom door.
“I panicked!” the victim said.
“They didn’t have masks on or anything. I mean, they were just blatant.”
The crooks, now identified by police as 19-year-old Deonte Moore and 20-year-old Terrance Ivory, held the frightened couple at gunpoint while demanding their belongings.
Both were arrested and charged Thursday.
“They said that if we didn’t cooperate and do exactly what they said that they were gonna take our children’s lives.”
The victim’s 11-year-old son, Gavin Williamson, and his seven-year-old brother were sleeping in another room as this was happening.
“It may seem surprising, how, like we didn’t wake up, but we’re heavy sleepers,” said Williamson.
Williamson’s mother thinks the suspects are the same men who pistol-whipped and robbed her boyfriend while he was working on a car in the driveway days earlier.
“They hurt him. They hurt him bad,” she said.
Moore was captured on cellphone video Tuesday walking into the Marion Hale Community Center and attacking another man.
He’s also been charged in connection with that crime.
Ivory was linked to three burglaries in November and December 2017, but records indicate those charges were dropped. No reason was given.
In the Boyce Road home invasion, the crooks took gaming equipment, a television, a wallet and even Williamson’s school backpack.
“Normally a lot of other people would probably be mad,” said Williamson.
But Williamson isn’t so much mad as he is full of sound advice for the people who terrorized his family.
“I’d say that you’re not living your life in the right direction. You should do something else other than that.”
Ivory is being held on a $100,000 bond. Moore’s bond is set at only $75,000.
