Cecil County couple beaten & robbed

The frantic knock at the door came in the wee hours of the morning at a home on Elk Forest Road awaking the homeowner who found a distressed woman asking to use a phone on her porch claiming she had been in a fight with her boyfriend.

"The victim stepped outside and gave this woman her cellphone and as the person who is now a suspect appeared to make a phone call, a male suspect came from around the house and attacked the female victim who was on the porch,” said Greg Shipley of the Maryland State Police, “He actually threw her to the ground and he was holding her around her neck."

The woman was able to break free of her attacker and ran to a nearby house.

"She started banging frantically on the front door telling us who she was.  My son opened it right away and shut it right behind them," said the victim’s neighbor, Tom Cole, "She was quite beat up.  They had slammed her face into the gravel driveway, and she managed to get away from him and vault over a couple of wheelbarrows that the guy that was following her tripped over.  So that's how she got into our house safely."

Meanwhile, a second man joined the first, both wearing masks, and entered the victim’s home where they confronted her husband at gunpoint.

"(They) pointed a gun at him and actually pulled the trigger twice,” said Shipley, “The gun did not fire, and (they) demanded money.  (They) took an undisclosed amount of cash from the home as well as some other items."

The tree suspects ran from the home and disappeared into the night before police arrived.

They are still at large.