By Patrick W. Connelly
FARRELL — A Farrell couple was attacked at gunpoint Friday morning by two Youngstown men who police said forced entry to a Walnut Avenue home.
The men left with two guns and fled into Ohio where they were caught by police.
Southwest Mercer County Regional police declined to release the victims’ names and said they declined medical treatment.
According to police:
The woman was returning at about 8:15 a.m. to her home at 1002 Walnut Ave. when the men attacked her from behind and forced her inside with a handgun.
The men — Allen L. Hill, 27, and Enrico T. Rhodes, 32 — then tied the woman’s hands with duct tape and made her take them upstairs where another man was sleeping.
Hill and Rhodes hit the man in the head with the gun while he tried to fight them and the woman fled.
They then searched the home for money and left with another handgun in a beige-colored van.
Police chased Hill and Rhodes into Brookfield and followed along state Route 82 where they tossed the guns from the van.
The men turned onto state Route 193 in Liberty and crashed near Wilson Road. Rhodes was arrested at the scene of the crash, but Hill ran and was caught shortly after in a field.
Hill was charged with fleeing and eluding Brookfield police and Rhodes was charged with tampering with evidence.
Both men are in Trumbull County Jail. Southwest Mercer County Regional police are preparing charges related to the home invasion, said Chief Riley Smoot Jr.
Two .40-caliber pistols the men had thrown from the van were found along Route 82, police said. The men had at least one gun before the attack, Brookfield police Chief Dan Faustino said.
The Farrell woman skinned her knee in the attack and had a sore head, Smoot said. The couple was unsure yet if any money had been taken from their home, he said.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol, the Trumbull County sheriff’s department and police in Liberty and Howland, Ohio, also helped with the arrests, Faustino said.
