GREENVILLE, Mich. –
Shane Wilcox thought he was stopping to help a panicked young woman by the side of the road. But his good deed turned into a violent robbery.
“I was on my way home from work,” Wilcox, of Greenville, said. It was a routine Friday night for the Navy veteran that quickly took a turn.
“I come around the corner. I see a car with its flashers on. As I got closer, I see a girl waving her hands, kinda semi-panicked, semi-frantic.”
“I’m always stopping for people to help them out,” Wilcox said. So he stopped this time, too.
“She started saying ‘thank you, thank you. My car’s broke down. It won’t start. I don’t have a phone, I can’t get a hold of anybody’,” he recalled.
As she told him that, a truck pulled up next to him. “I didn’t think anything of it. Thought another motorist helping out,” he explained.
“Next thing I know, out of the corner of my eye, I see an object.”
A stop to help a stranger turned violent without warning. Wilcox was hit in the face with a blunt object and knocked to the ground.
“One guy was kicking me in the ribs. Other guy was like stomping on my head.”
At 6’3″ and 250 pounds, Wilcox put up a fight. Then came what he believes was a knife.
“They tried jabbing that into me. They got a pretty good cut in it.” Wilcox showed a torn winter vest and a ripped ball cap.
The men, who Wilcox says must have been on drugs, sped away. They took his wallet and a wad of cash. That left him with sore ribs, a bruised face, and a scraped wrist.
However, he made it home to his wife who called 911.
“Made it out alive, thank the Lord for that,” he said.
“This could have been someone different. This could have been somebody much older, much more frail.”
“Hopefully the word getting out there, ya know, people, better prepare themselves for a situation like this,” Wilcox said.
“I would hope that there’s people that know these people and will turn them in. Maybe they can get some help. Maybe they can get into some kind of rehab program.”.
Will he no longer stop to help strangers?
“No. My parents raised me to help people out. You do to others as you want them to do to you. So if there’s someone along the side of the road, I absolutely will stop again.”
The Greenville Police Department is investigating.
Wilcox says the attackers were two white men who look to be in their mid-20’s. They were driving a Chevy truck, possibly champagne color.
He says the woman who flagged him down is white, has dark hair and a purple streak in her hair. She looks to be between 18 and 25 years old and was driving what looked to be a white older model Taurus.
