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Terrified twice - by same robbers

Eight months after beating him, they leave three bullets in Ed Waldon's head.

By S.I. Rosenbaum
Published January 16, 2007

VALRICO - Lorena Fultz heard banging on her door Monday. She opened it.

There was her neighbor, Ed, blood dripping from his handlebar mustache. He had three bullets lodged in his head.

"Call the police," he said.

* * *

The first time the men came, they beat Edward Waldon in his bed.

There were two of them. They broke into his mobile home in May, took Waldon's prized Canon EOS Digital Rebel camera, and left him bruised and terrified.

After that, Waldon, 62, slept with a butcher knife next to the bed, his sister Rebecca Gravel said.

For six months he saved his money from the night shift at a plastics factory, until he could replace the camera, which he uses for nature photography.

He also bought a shotgun, but he ended up taking it back to the store.

"He was asking, 'Could I actually pull the trigger and kill someone?' " said Gravel, 51, of North Tampa.

Her brother is a tough guy, she said. He served in both the Army and the Navy.

He had always thought he could defend himself if he had to, she said, until he had to and couldn't.

* * *

About noon Monday, a man forced Waldon's door open.

He pointed a gun at Waldon.

"Remember me?" he said.

It was the same man who robbed him seven months ago, Waldon would tell his sister.

"He thought, 'They're not taking my camera again,' " Gravel said.

Waldon rushed forward. The two men struggled. The gun went off, burying a bullet behind Waldon's left ear and pushing shards of bone into his brain.

Then the man shot Waldon in the forehead.

Waldon went down. He thought he was dying, he told his sister later.

Waldon lay on the kitchen floor. The gunman and his partner ransacked the mobile home, carrying out his computer.

Waldon tried to edge toward the counter where a knife was lying. That was when the man came back.

He stood over Waldon. Looked him in the eye.

Then, Gravel said, the man pointed the gun at Waldon and shot him a third time in the face.

* * *

Next door, Diana Elevier, 55, was asleep. She heard what sounded like a firecracker going off. Then another.

By the third shot she was awake. She looked outside. A man was loading a computer monitor into a blue van.

"What are you doing?" Elevier yelled.

The man ignored her. Another man came out of Waldon's mobile home, and both jumped into the van, which peeled out of the small mobile home park.

Elevier ran to Waldon's door.

"I knew if those guys were standing, Ed wasn't," she said. "Ed's a tough guy."

Waldon was kneeling in his kitchen.

"It was like Carrie," Elevier said later. "Like someone had just thrown blood on him."

She could see a dull metal bullet sticking out of the skin of his forehead.

He asked her to call the police. She went to find her cell phone. Waldon went to ask his other neighbor, Fultz, to call the police as well.

Then he sat on his front stoop to wait for an ambulance.

* * *

At Tampa General Hospital, Waldon's sister huddled outside the emergency room, smoking a cigarette. "I can't believe he's got three bullets in him," she said. "You should see the X-ray."

Waldon will have surgery today to repair damage done by the first bullet, behind his ear, she said. They're not sure yet about the other two.

If the gun had been more powerful, Gravel said, her brother would be dead.

He had sent their other brother back to the mobile home that afternoon, she said, to bring back one thing the thieves didn't get: his camera.

S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at 813 661-2442 or srosenbaum@sptimes.com.

If you can help

The robbers

The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office is looking for two men who robbed and shot Edward Waldon in Valrico Monday. One was described as a Hispanic male, 6 feet, about 245 pounds, 19 to 23 years old. The second was described as 5 feet 8, about 215 pounds, age 27 to 32, possibly with a small mustache. The men, who drove a blue van, may be trying to sell items taken from Waldon, including his computer. Anyone with information is asked to call the Sheriff's Office at (813) 247-8200.

[Last modified January 16, 2007, 00:41:22]