Elderly Columbus man defends self and wife in violent attack

The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that a 21 year-old burglar is dead after he and an accomplice attacked homeowners who came to investigate sounds in their garage.

From the article:

For the second time in a week, the alarm at Emerson and Nancy Frazier’s South Side ranch home blared.

The couple — he is 69, she is 58 — got out of bed about 4 a.m. yesterday to investigate who was breaking into their garage this time.

Gun in hand, Mr. Frazier, known as “Moley,” and his wife went to the detached garage behind their house at 990 Bruckner Rd. and encountered two men.

“One run away. He knocked me down.” Mrs. Frazier told a 911 dispatcher. “But the other one’s shot in my garage. Will you please get someone here?”

Mr. Frazier shot one of the intruders in the chest, according to accounts by relatives. The other tried to wrestle the gun from Mr. Frazier before running away.

“He took my husband’s gun,” Mrs. Frazier said in the 911 call. “He was going to shoot my husband.”

The wounded man died about two hours later at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center. Franklin County Coroner Jan Gorniak identified him as Ray Lee Kroah, although court and school records list his name as Rayley Kroah. He was 21.

According to the article, it was not detectives, but the Fraziers’ daughter, Stella Mounts, identified her mom and dad. Mounts told the Dispatch she spoke to her parents briefly Monday morning, and her dad kept asking about the man who was shot.

“He didn’t want the guy to die,” she said. “He’s not a violent person.”

Police questioned the couple until about 1 p.m.

Both her parents are diabetic, Mounts said, and were bruised and shaken by the attack. She worried about them getting their medications, especially her mother, who has two brain tumors and suffers from seizures.

Mrs. Frazier, in her tearful 911 call, told the dispatcher about her health problems and the earlier break-in. She said she was scared.

“This is twice they’ve done us this way in our own home,” she said.

When the alarm went off last week, whoever broke in ran away before taking anything. Since then, family members had looked into adding security cameras and reinforcing the garage door. They didn’t get a chance.

“We didn’t think this was going to happen again so soon,” said the couple’s daughter-in-law, Margie Frazier.

A neighbor across the street was quoted as saying burglars had broken into the shed behind her house last week, cutting the lock but not taking anything.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary, BFA PAC Vice Chairman, and an NRA-certified firearms instructor.