Retired school principal Charlotte Ann Neely-White was
preparing for her wedding at her home in Mount Vernon, MO when a stranger
drove up, claimed there was a bomb in his car, and made the mistake
of demanding she give him her beloved pickup.
No shrinking violet, Neely-White, had her fiance get her the pistol
she kept in her home. While she fought with the man, the gun went off,
wounding the man in the chest.
Not missing a beat, a few hours later, Neely-White got married as scheduled.
"It was a long day," the former public school principal said
Friday.
Lawrence County Sheriff Doug Seneker said he had no doubt
that Neely-White acted in self defense.
Witnesses said the confrontation started about three hours before Neely-White's
Fourth of July wedding.
The stranger "went rushing by and then he slammed on his brakes,
and then he came into the yard, and he said 'Somebody call 911 quick,
there's a bomb in my car,"' Cassidy said. "He was scared and
excited, and just kind of wired."
Then he demanded that Neely-White give him her pickup.
White, 55, refused.
"Have you ever had anything you really love? Well, I love that
truck," said Ms. White.
She said the man threatened to set off the bomb if she didn't give him
her truck. "I said, 'No sir, you go ahead and set the bomb off.
My house needs work anyway."'
Ms. White said the man attacked her with a riding whip, so she screamed
for her fiance, who had gone inside to call police, to grab her .22-caliber
pistol.
"I probably mowed my fiance over," Ms. White said. As a former
principal, it was in her nature to take control, she said.
Sheriff Seneker said Ms. White and the assailant struggled for the gun,
and it went off, hitting the man once in the chest. He managed to grab
the gun from her, break a window in Neely-White's pickup with a piece
of firewood and open the door. With the gun pointed at her, Neely-White
wisely backed off.
Police later arrested Jorge Luis Cecenas, 30, after he allegedly abandoned
the pickup. He was charged Friday, while hospitalized with a chest wound,
with first-degree assault and other counts.
