"A community garage sale brings all sorts of guests, but at the Sutton family home, in Carrollton, one visitor was not so welcome.
Amy Sutton, 25, was in the kitchen, about to go back out into the garage to see if any customers had arrived. Just then she noticed the door knob turning. As the door to the garage swung open, Sutton came face to face with an intruder.
"The guy just came in and looked straight at me and pointed his gun at me," said Sutton.
At first Sutton thought it was a joke, but as the man approached her, she knew her life was at stake. She started screaming for help as she turned and ran for the front door. The gunman ran after her, grabbing her and slamming her up against the wall.
"I screamed," Sutton said, and the intruder said, "Don't do that. Don't do that. I'll take your kids," Sutton told Fox 8.
Sutton's two children, Nicholas, 3, and Nathan, 1, were playing in the family room.
What the gunman didn't realize was that Sutton's 72-year-old grandfather, Joe Sabol, was also in the family room, sitting in a chair, when the gunman came into the house. If the intruder had turned around, he would have seen Sabol plain as day. Instead, he kept his back to the family room.
"He didn't know I was sitting here because when he opened that door he couldn't see me. He just went straight that way," Sabol explained.
Sutton says her only thought was getting the intruder as far away from her kids as possible. She wanted to get out of the house and scream for help, in hopes that other neighbors would hear her. She figured someone would -- since everyone was outside of their homes for the community garage sale.
Sutton, however, never made it that far. After being slammed up against the wall, she took off running again, but the gunman was close behind. He grabbed the back of her shirt. She kept going.
When Sutton got to the front door, the gunman had-had enough and went to shoot her in the back. Sutton heard him cock the shotgun.
"I just closed my eyes 'cause I'm thinking if he's gonna shoot me, so be it, just as long as my kids are safe," explained Sutton.
That's when Joe sprang into action. The great grandfather sneaked in on the gunman for a surprise attack of his own. He quietly walked up behind him.
Sabol saw his opportunity when the gunman turned the barrel of the gun to the floor as he cocked it. Sabol seized the moment.
"I reached down then and I got a tight grip on the stalk of the gun and when I got a hold of (it) there was no way he was gonna get that back," said Sabol.
Sutton says she looked back and saw her grandfather wrestling with the intruder.
"All I know is I look back and my pap is tackling the guy with a gun," said Sutton.
When the struggle was over, Sabol had control of the gun. The intruder turned on his heels and ran back the way he had come in, through the garage, and off into a wooded area.
Sutton quickly called the Carroll County Sheriff's Department. Deputies came out to search the area. They found 30-year-old Jason Haught hiding in the woods. He's been charged with one count of aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, and kidnapping, all of them are felonies of the first degree. He also faces a charge of burglary and theft, both third degree felonies.
Carroll County Sheriff Dale Williams says Sutton is very lucky to be alive.
"I feel sure that if grandpa hadn't been there, this would've turned ugly. We could've been investigating a homicide," said Williams.
According to court records, Haught has a criminal past, including a prison term served for domestic violence in 2007, another domestic violence case in 2005, drug paraphernalia in 2004 and in 1999 a DUI -- just to name a few of the charges.
Sutton says she's always considered her grandfather a hero, but now he is in everyone eyes.
"He saved my life! If he wasn't here I would've been shot on the porch. Who knows what he (the gunman) would've done to my kids," Sutton told Fox 8.
Sabol says God must have given him strength in his time of need. Sabol is not only missing a lung, but he's had two open heart surgeries following a heart attack, and he has diabetes. He doesn't consider himself a hero. "Just gotta do what you gotta do. Yea. They're my pride and joy, all of them!"
See. Not everyone from Ohio abides by the official State Police motto of "Just Give Them What They Want".
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