Young children watch as gunmen terrorize parents

By JOE HUMPHREY

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 9, 2000

TAMPA -- Three-year-old Denny didn't cry and he didn't seem scared. But after the most terrifying moments of his life were complete, and mother Crystal Colvin asked whether he understood, it was clear Denny did.

"He said, "They tied my mommy up and hit my daddy on the head,' " Colvin recalled Thursday evening, after two men ransacked her house, beat her boyfriend Charlie Nowling with a gun and tied up the couple in the bathroom.

Nowling came home about 3 a.m. Thursday after a night out. That's when, according to police, two men confronted him in the driveway, on 46th Street just north of the Hillsborough River.

Nowling, who has a history of drug arrests, ran but tripped in a neighbor's yard. The men, Colvin said, picked up Nowling, 21, and took him to the front door. Colvin, her two children and her niece were awakened by their two dogs barking.

When the 12-year-old niece saw Nowling at the door, she opened it.

"She opened the door thinking it was Charlie, but it wasn't Charlie," Colvin said. "It was them pushing Charlie in."

Colvin, 19, said the men came inside. They locked the barking dogs, a boxer and a pit bull, in the bathroom. They beat Nowling with a pistol, Colvin said, then ransacked the house, asking where the "important things" were located.

The men packed up the stereo, about $3,000 worth of gold jewelry and change Colvin had saved for her sons. A television, a radio and a safe full of personal papers were also taken, Colvin said.

Colvin and Nowling, parents of Denny and his 2-year-old brother, watched as the men rummaged through their belongings. Colvin and her niece held the children in their laps as the men gathered valuables. "They wanted anything they could pick up," Colvin said.

When the men were ready to leave, they told Colvin to move the dogs into a bedroom and ordered the residents to squeeze into the bathroom. They tied up Colvin and Nowling with rope and told them not to move for 30 minutes, Colvin said. The niece was not tied up, and the brothers sat in the bathtub as the men drove away in an unknown vehicle.

On the way out, Colvin said, the men ripped the phone from the wall.

No arrests had been made Thursday.

Joe Humphrey can be reached at 226-3403 or humphrey@sptimes.com.

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