Farmer shoots would-be intruder

Jury will decide if action justified; man, 19, charged with attempted burglary

SELMA -- It had been so long since Randall Holmes had reason to shoot his pistol, he forgot where he had stashed it.

When the farmer, 62, spotted a stranger forcing his way into his home in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday, he nudged his wife awake to help find his gun, said Johnston County Sheriff's Lt. Tommy Beasley.

Holmes' frantic search must have spooked the would-be burglar. By the time Holmes fetched and loaded his pistol, Beasley said, the stranger had hopped into a white sedan. The car sped across the yard toward the road.

Holmes managed to let loose a few rounds, pinging the getaway car a few times. His wife, Patsy Holmes, called law enforcement.

"He was just trying to stop the car," Beasley said. "If he'd managed to do it, I reckon he planned to hold 'em until someone got there."

About that time, a Smithfield police officer spotted a white car heading toward Johnston Memorial Hospital. A minute later, dispatchers told officers to look out for a white sedan coming from the direction of Buffalo Road in Selma.

Moments later, a nurse at Johnston Memorial called Smithfield police to report that a man had walked into the emergency room with a gunshot wound in his right biceps, said Smithfield Police Capt. Joey Cuddington. The patient, Derrick Barnes, 19, said a group of guys taunting him and his girlfriend near the Walgreens in Smithfield had sprayed him with bullets.

It sounded fishy to the Smithfield officer, so he called for a detective.

Cuddington said doctors patched Barnes up, and deputies took him to jail and charged him with attempted first-degree burglary. His girlfriend, Crystal Morrison, 21, who deputies said was a passenger in the white Ford Contour, was charged with being an accessory to the foiled robbery. Both are held in the Johnston County jail.

Holmes could be in trouble, too. The sheriff and district attorney will let a jury decide next month whether he should be charged with a crime for shooting at the car.