Two arrested for beating elderly woman in Robeson home

Authorities charged Montrexe Daytoria Blue, 16, of Orrum, with attempted first-degree murder, breaking and entering, larceny of a motor vehicle, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and felony conspiracy.

She was being held on a $500,000 bond.

The 14-year-old, whose name they withheld, faces the same charges, they said.

Authorities captured them after seeing video from Orrum Middle School's surveillance camera, which is across the street from the elderly woman's house.

On Sunday, a state trooper investigating a car found in a swamp off Atkinson Road found the owner, Lola Nye, 80, badly beaten in her home about three miles away.

Nye was taken to a local hospital and was alert and able to talk to investigators, Sheriff Kenneth Sealey said. She was listed in serious condition. Overnight, however, she was airlifted to Duke University Medical Center in Durham, where her condition was unavailable. Duke sometimes refuses to disclose information about patients who are crime victims.

Robeson County resident Jerry Jacobs said he spotted the car around 4:30 p.m. and thought it looked like someone had ditched the vehicle there.

"The front part of the car, the wheels and the headlights, were submerged. The headlights were still on. The radio was playing," Jacobs said.

Jacobs called 911, and Trooper Kelvin Locklear responded. The driver's-side door was open, and the radio was on – playing rap music.

Locklear found the owner's name on the registration and went to check on her.

Inside the house on South Creek Road, "It was obvious something had happened because there was blood everywhere on the door entrance," Locklear said.

"She had been beaten severely," said Sealey, adding that the crime took place in Nye's home, where she lives alone. Detectives said they thought someone robbed Nye and stole her car.

Sealey said that such violence is almost unheard of in Orrum, a community of 80 people. Residents, likewise, expressed outrage at the crime.

"This is a real quiet community. We have very little crime in this community," Sealey said.

"Whoever done it – to me, they're just not people," Sherry Stephens, of Orrum, said. "They're not human – to do something like that to an elderly person."

At the Orrum General Store, town residents said Nye is a friendly, generous woman.

"She's just a good, Christian, upstanding lady in the community. Everybody loves her," Stephens said. "She's one of those people that would give you the shirt off her back and not expect it back."