Truesee's Daily Wonder

He hopes you never live a week like this

Beating, robbery followed by accidental shooting

Friday,  October 2, 2009 3:08 AM

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Times have been tough for Ralph Needs.

The 80-year-old still aches from a broken nose and other beating injuries. His right hand is bandaged to protect a gunshot wound.

He can't return to his Groveport home because it's trashed. And his new, red Ford F-350 pickup truck was stolen.

"Hell, for anybody to have been beaten and shot, that would be a bad week," said Groveport Police Chief Gary York.

Needs' problems started Sept. 20. He fell asleep about 8:30 p.m. while watching TV in his bedroom and awoke to find two men standing over his bed.

They'd broken a sliding-glass door to get in and, for some reason, thought he had a lot of money.

For three hours, he was pistol-whipped, tormented and threatened with death.

He doesn't know why he was picked on. Perhaps, he said, it was the new truck in the driveway of his Bixby Road home.

"I don't have a real explanation. It may have given an appearance of money," Needs said this week.

The men eventually took the truck, a computer and credit cards.

Four days later, Needs was shot in his right pinkie and thumb. His eldest son, Steve, was trying to teach Needs how to defend himself with a gun. As Steve loaded the 9 mm pistol, it went off.

Because the shooting was accidental, no charge will be filed, York said.

Needs said he had always felt safe in the Groveport house he has lived in since 1973, even while living alone after his wife died six years ago. He's now living in Lancaster with a relative because his house was ransacked.

"They completely ruined the house, upstairs and downstairs," Needs said.

He was tied up with his belt, punched in the mouth and smacked with a pistol. At one point, his attackers kept him in his bathtub.

"I wouldn't want anyone else to go through it," he said. "They meant to kill me."

Two men terrorized Needs while at least one other -- and maybe more -- turned his house upside down looking for money and items to steal.

One of the assailants kept threatening to kill, electrocute or burn him unless he forked over $20,000, he said. Needs said he doesn't have that kind of cash, but he handed over his credit and debit cards.

One of the robbers took the debit card to an ATM and, with Needs' personal-identification number, withdrew $500.

Needs said one attacker promised, "I am going to burn him."

That man threatened Needs with something that Needs didn't see because, when it was plugged in, the lights in the bathroom were blown out.

When the men left, they locked him in a room by tying two doors together, but he was able to force his way out.

Last week, police found Needs' computer in a house at 1540 Weber Rd. in Columbus. Groveport and Columbus police questioned six people, and Paul D. Keel, 36, who lives there, was charged with receiving stolen property.

Police would not say what led them to Keel. No one has been charged with the assault.

One assailant threatened repeatedly to kill, electrocute or burn Needs unless he forked over $20,000, he said. Needs said he doesn't have that kind of cash, but he handed over his credit and debit cards.

LINK TO PHOTO OF NEEDS':

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/10/02/needs.ART_ART_10-02-09_A1_4EF8KNS.html