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Folks who grew up in these parts can still remember the good ol’ days, when they would leave their front door open and unlocked at night so a breeze could flow through the screen door. They remember when they would leave the doors to their vehicle unlocked – sometimes with the keys in the ignition, sometimes with the engine still running – while they ran inside to get something. They remember a time when crime is what happened mostly to other people, not to the good residents of rural Cherokee County.
David Higdon is one of those people. He grew up here and is proud to call the county his home, as his family goes way back in these parts. He and his wife, both 77, live a peaceful life at 4289 Pisgah Road in Andrews, where their home is about 500 feet off of the roadway, giving them plenty of privacy.
However, their peace was interrupted around 2:15 a.m. Jan. 31, when he said “a big boom” woke them up.
“My first thought was, maybe a limb fell outside and hit the house? Or perhaps a gas log ignited?” Higdon said. “When my wife noticed the glass on the storm door shattered, I wondered if maybe a bear we had seen before hadn’t come around again.”
That’s when they saw gunshot pellets inside the glass frame of the storm door, which left them with an unsettling realization: Someone had deliberately come down the road and into their driveway, then walked up to the front door before firing a round into their home.
Their fears were confirmed when shotgun wadding was found outside, at the place and angle where the shooter would have been standing with their weapon.
“We have no idea why someone would do that,” Higdon said. “My wife is afraid to go outside and enjoy the lifestyle she always has now. We’re apprehensive about every noise around the house.”
To his credit, Higdon doesn’t want anyone else going through this “nonsense.” To that end, he’s offering a $2,500 reward for information the leads to the arrest of whoever is responsible for firing that gun toward his occupied dwelling.
If you might know something, please call Detective Sport Teasdale with the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office at 837-1289, Ext. 1424; leave your name and contact information in order to be considered for the reward. If you’d prefer to leave an anonymous tip, call 837-1344.
“It would be worthwhile if we can get that person off the streets and hold them accountable,” he said.
And just in case the same person or anyone else decides to break the law again, Higdon is installing cameras around his home to make it easier to identify those responsible.
“We’ve always been live-and-let-live kind of people,” he said, “but that has been a life-changing incident.”
David Brown is publisher of the Cherokee Scout. You can reach him by phone, 837-5122; email, dbrown@cherokeescout.com; or on Twitter @daviddBstroh.