CARROLLTON — One of the suspects in jail for attacking and robbing Vallie and Hubert Strachan at their Carroll County home had worked for the elderly couple.
Vallie Strachan said Robert Earl Covington, 37, of North Carrollton had worked for her husband, Hubert, since September. Her 81-year-old husband “takes care of several doctors’ places in the county,” she said, and he hired Covington to help him with odd jobs, such as cutting grass.
She had also known Covington from his years at Marshall Elementary School, where she worked as a reading assistant from 1970 to 1999.
Mrs. Strachan, 80, said she can finally rest now that two suspects are in jail, but she is just glad to be alive.
“They could have killed us. Hubert has diabetes and an aortic aneurysm. He’s not in good shape. He has bruises up and down his arm. They jerked him off the bed.
“I’m OK, just sore. They put a coat over me. I was trying to push them off. They had elbows in my back and head. I have scratches,” Mrs. Strachan said. “When they ran off, I threw down the coat and ran to see if I could see them, but they were gone. We called 9-1-1.”
Covington and Charles E. Chandler, 28, of Greenwood face charges of kidnapping and burglary of an occupied dwelling in connection with Friday’s invasion of the Strachans’ home and a similar crime the day before at the home of another elderly Carroll County resident, Green Thomas.
Mrs. Strachan said the night before Thomas, 95, was robbed, Covington “called and said he wouldn’t be at work” the next morning “because he had to go to the doctor. He said he would be through about 9:30 and would call, but he never did.”
Thomas was assaulted around 8:30 a.m. Thursday, according to authorities.
“Robert was in my class,” Mrs. Strachan said. “I thought he was OK. He came in one day and fixed my stove element.”
On that occasion, Mrs. Strachan said she had volunteered to take Covington home, and on the way, he had asked her if she had a Dollar General bag. She told him she did, and he asked her to stop close to the property of another person for whom he worked.
“He got out and filled it up. I don’t know what he put in there. I took him on home, but I went and told that person what he had done,” she said.
Mrs. Strachan said other things have come up missing since Covington began working for her husband, causing her to buy and put up a camera pointed toward Mr. Strachan’s truck.
“Hubert used to keep change in there. Every morning he goes to 4-K to buy a Clarion-Ledger for him and Ken (their son) to read. We had $17 come up missing one time, and $55 another time from the truck. I put up a camera and aimed it at the truck to try to see who was taking the money. I put some play money in an envelope,” she said.
A look at camera footage, however, did not show who entered the house Friday morning, she said.
“We’ve been living here 61 years. Nothing like this has ever happened.”
