Man, 70, thought he was going to die during robbery, kidnapping

GASTONIA, N.C. — Police are investigating three kidnappings and robberies in Gastonia since Saturday.

Police are still waiting to get surveillance video from Charlotte of the two robbers.

They now believe there's a third person involved, who drops the men off before the kidnappings and picks them up afterward.

Channel 9 spoke with a 70-year-old victim who said he is now ready to protect himself.

Eddie Sausville says he used to use his gun for hunting.

But now he's keeping it close, after he was kidnapped Saturday morning.

He said he had just arrived home from shopping when the men jumped out from behind a dumpster, pulled out guns and forced him back into his car.

"I thought I was going to be dead," Sausville said.

Sausville suffered a stroke, which makes it hard for him to speak, but he wanted to tell us what the kidnappers said to him when he mistakenly gave them the wrong PIN to his ATM card.

"Well it's about time to shoot somebody," Sausville said.

Once the kidnappers got Sausville's money from a Charlotte ATM, they drove him to Concord, where they left him with his car.

Police said a few hours before that, the same two men kidnapped a man from his home near the Gaston Country Club.

They forced him to take money out of a credit union ATM in Gastonia.

Then on Monday morning, the two men kidnapped two volunteers at a church in Gastonia and made them withdraw cash in Charlotte.

"They seem to be, from what we can tell, targets of opportunity," said Capt. Steve Duncan of the Gastonia Police Department.

WSOC