Rural Miller family victim of robbery, shooting attack

On the evening of Monday, Sept. 14, Miller’s Caydon Lewis, 15, was dropped off at his home by a friend. He noticed that a hideaway key that he used to unlock the door had been moved, but thought little of it. As he walked into the house, he noticed that the guns stored throughout the house were gone, but thought maybe his father had moved them.
Then, he heard the gunshots.
“I stood in the kitchen for a minute and took off my shirt, put my hat back on, and when I walked into the living room, I heard two gunshots,” he said. “I stood up and looked around for a second, because I didn’t know what had exactly happened. Two or three more (shots) went off and all of those went through the front side of our house and into the kitchen where I was just a second before. As I was running back to my room to find a gun, one went through our living room wall and hit our TV.”
Caydon ran to his bedroom to get his .22. It was gone, but his shotgun, which he’d had covered with a sheet on his bed, was still there. He took it and returned fire.
“I got my 12-gauge,” he said, “and I shot twice through the front door and once more through the living room window back at them and then ran out the back door.”
Caydon then ran to his neighbor’s house. His neighbor called Caydon’s father, Jared Lewis, who in turn called 911.
Thieves gained access
As it turned out, the guns were missing from the house because they’d been stolen. Jared Lewis said he doesn’t know who did it, but he knows that it’s somebody who knows him, as they knew where the key was.
“They used our hideaway key to enter the house (and) steal the guns,” he said. “They stole almost all the guns that the boys and I have there, and that’s the only possessions we can find that are missing, and after they took all the guns out that they found, they used the hide-a-key to lock the door back.”
Lewis also said he doesn’t know why anyone would try to hurt Caydon.
“You can ask most anybody, he’s the most loveable kid there is,” he said.
Caydon said he saw an outline of one of the shooters, but couldn’t tell who it was.
“I only saw one person, but to take that many guns, it had to be more than one person,” he said.
Finding the perpetrators
Since that evening, the Lewis’ have taken precautions to make sure what happened that night doesn’t happen again. The hideaway key is now gone, cameras have been installed and the guns they still have are locked in a gun safe.
On the night of the incident, Lewis said, a deputy from the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office came out to investigate, but Lewis said he hasn’t heard much from them since.
“They contacted me one time, and that was Saturday morning around 7:45 a.m., and the investigator asked if I had patched the bullet holes in my house yet,” he said. “I told him that I had. He said, ‘Well, I was looking at pictures, and I was thinking about coming out to look at them.’ Other than that, it’s been me contacting them and not getting any sort of information out of them.”
Lewis added that he is frustrated by what he sees as a lack of work being done on the case.
“I don’t feel like it’s being taken seriously, it’s being taken very lightly,” he said. “I don’t understand why there weren’t deputies out looking for these people … that night. I cannot grasp that.”
Sheriff’s response
Brad DeLay, Lawrence County Sheriff, said that in truth, the incident at the Lewis’s house is receiving as much attention as any other crime, but there is an unrealistic expectation of what happens when a crime is investigated.
“Unfortunately, TV crime shows have ruined a lot of perception on how things are done,” he said. “Most people expect a 30-man crime scene unit to show up and work 24 hours and have a crime scene solved within 30 minutes. Obviously, around here, and in most places that simply does not happen. Many times, we only have one person on; if we are lucky, that number doubles to two.”
He added that right now, there is also little evidence for investigators to work with.
“We have almost nothing to go on,” he said. “The victim could not give us any suspect information, no suspect vehicle information or any other pertinent information to help the investigation. This is also (what) most people do not understand. We had a victim, who was there during the incident both before and after, and they could not give us any information. But unfortunately, people expect us to drive there from who knows where after the incident and tell them who did it and where the property is, (and) it just doesn’t happen that way. If the person at the residence can’t give us the information, then we just have to search for our own information, which takes time.”
Anyone with any information on the robbery and shooting at the Lewis’s house can submit a tip online at the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office’s website at www.lawrencecosheriff.com, or over the phone at (888) 635-8477.