His parents and his four younger brothers were gone over the weekend when 18-year-old Alex Folmer awoke to find two teens had kicked in a door, forced their way inside and began beating the victim with their hands, their feet and a hammer.
"He had been unconscious for probably eight to 12 hours after the attack. We were very lucky that he woke up," said Alex’s mother, Tina Folmer, who described how he had to make it to the land line to call for help in spite of his multiple injuries. "He has at least one broken orbital... potentially a second. His sinuses are fractured. He has a lot of bruising and boot marks to his face. He has a lot of lacerations and bruising where he was hit with a hammer to his extremities."
Alex later identified his attackers---18-year-old Ryan Smetana of Bel Air and Ian Heinecke of nearby Forest Hill.
In addition to the attack on Alex, they also trashed his guitars, his computer and his cell phone among other things totaling more than $3,000 worth of damage.
Alex's parents say it appears they also broke into a lock box and stole cash and checks from a Cub Scout troop as well as pilfering what they could from a medicine cabinet.
"You know how kids are with social media,” said Alex’s father, Dan Folmer. “We think people knew that he was here by himself and we have many young kids and just thinking, 'What if they had been home or something like that?'"
"He knew of them. I don't know if they truly knew each other or not. We don't know,” said Tina. “Alex is not very clear. He is not quite there right now. He's still pretty confused about a lot of things, and we don't want to speculate."
With both of the suspects behind bars, the challenge now is for Alex to rebound and for his family to regain something else missing since the home invasion---their sense of security.
"It shattered us. It shattered our kids,” said his father. “I mean you don't feel safe at home anymore."
"Our first thought was, 'We need to move away,'” said his mother. ‘We need to keep our kids safe and we don't know how safe it will be because these boys have friends and they have friends and they have friends and it just keeps going on.’"
The attack happened sometime between eleven o'clock Saturday evening and three o'clock in the morning on Sunday.
If you have any information, which could help in this case, you're asked to call the Bel Air Police Department.
