Carjacking turns birthday celebration into time of terror for DeLand couple

By Pat Hatfield
BEACON STAFF WRITER

posted Jul 11, 2008 - 9:57:44am

Life has been good for Leonard and Lois Dowling of DeLand. Recently, son Ben Dowling was recognized by Ford Motor Co. as one of the nation's top-ranked Ford employees.

(Read about Ben Dowling and his chance to meet country music superstar Toby Keith.)

Even more recently, Lois and Leonard celebrated Leonard's 83rd birthday June 24. Lois asked where he'd like to have a celebration lunch, and Leonard named Stacey's Homestyle Buffet in Orange City.

Though the restaurant is one of Leonard's favorites, he hasn't been back since his birthday. The memories of that afternoon are still a little too painful for the former World War II prisoner of war.

The Dowlings enjoyed their luncheon.

As they prepared to leave, the couple spotted a red car come tearing into the Stacey's parking lot. It hit the curbing.

"All four wheels went in the air," Lois said.

The car came to rest in the grass next to the restaurant. Leonard and Lois weren't overly concerned, assuming it was simply careless driving.

Lois went into the women's room. As usual, Leonard went to the parking lot to start up his Dodge Dakota and run its air conditioner, so the truck would be comfortable when his wife came out.

That's when Leonard came face to face with a 20-year-old carjacker. A short time earlier, the DeLand man had embarked on a vehicle-theft and carjacking spree that began when he stole a work truck from Stetson University.

The man had carjacked two other vehicles on his way down U.S. Highway 17-92, including one with a 10-year-old boy inside. He led law-enforcement officers on a brief, bizarre trip, sometimes approaching 100 mph and veering into the northbound lane as he drove south.

(Read the original Beacon report..)

Leonard knew none of this. When the young man approached the Dodge Dakota, Leonard wasn't alarmed, at first.

"When he told me to get out of the car, I thought he might be a cop," Leonard said. Leonard thought there might be some emergency, such as a toxic-waste spill.

Then, the man brandished a butcher knife, and used it to make a cutting gesture against Leonard's arm.

"Get out. Get out now," the carjacker told Leonard.

"He did have that knife, and I had a lot of respect for it," Leonard said.

As Leonard fumbled with his seat belt, the carjacker became impatient, and grabbed the older man, pulling him out of the truck.

"I had my foot hung between the seat and the front door," Leonard said.

He fell out of the truck, then ran to the far side of a car parked next to the Dakota.

The carjacker climbed into the Dakota, and ran it back and forth, ramming the vehicle parked in front and an unmarked police vehicle that had pulled in behind, trying to push one or the other out of the way for a getaway.

Orange City Detective Ken Jones jumped from the passenger side of the unmarked police SUV and ordered the carjacker to stop.

Leonard said he didn't know if the man was deliberately trying to run Jones down, but came perilously close to doing so. That's when Detective Sgt. Jason Sampsell, still in the unmarked car, fired at the carjacker in Leonard's Dakota.

"Two windows were shot out. There was one hole through the driver's door, and one in the headrest," Leonard said.

Leonard's dress POW cap was in a plastic bag over the visor.

"A bullet came through the plastic bag, but didn't hit the cap," he said.

The Dakota was declared a total loss after the incident.

The whole event was a shock.

Leonard experienced plenty of bullets and bombs during World War II. He was a turret gunner in a B-24 aircraft stationed in Norwich, England, part of the 8th Air Force's 389th Bombardment Group.

When his plane was shot down over Nazi Germany, Leonard spent eight months as a prisoner of war. Three months of that was in a forced March across Germany, sometimes called the Hungry March, because prisoners were fed starvation rations.

Leonard survived. He didn't expect his life to be endangered by a knife-wielding carjacker on his 83rd birthday.

Meanwhile, Lois, who had gone into the women's room, exited the restaurant as the incident was ending.

"If I had seen the whole thing, I would have had a heart attack," Lois said. She feared for her husband, whom she calls "the sweetest man in the world."

Lois tried to run to her husband's side, but another restaurant patron grabbed her and held her back, fearing for her safety. Lois' arm still showed the marks a couple of weeks later.

A muscle in Leonard's leg, strained as he was pulled from the truck, is still healing.

July 10, as they recounted the events, Leonard and Lois said they have sympathy for the young man's drug problems, which they've heard about. They didn't understand the rampage, though, or why the man spent so little time in jail after robbing Ritter's Towne Pharmacy in April to get the powerful narcotic OxyContin.

"I hated that a young man took that course in life, to end it before he really got a chance to live," Leonard said.

The 20-year-old had served a couple of months in jail for the DeLand robbery. He was released two days before the carjacking spree.

The robbery had been his first offense. He was scheduled to serve a year under house arrest, followed by another year of drug-offender probation.

Lois and Leonard are determined the June 24 incident will not result in a house arrest for them. They will eventually return to Leonard's favorite restaurant.

— pat@beacononlinenews.com

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