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'Get the hell off of her right now!' Gutsy Good Samaritan, 66, tackles carjacker, saves woman — and things get even wilder
AGUSTIN PAULLIER/AFP via Getty Images

'Get the hell off of her right now!' Gutsy Good Samaritan, 66, tackles carjacker, saves woman — and things get even wilder

Gary Edwards wasn't the only hero; his wife, Anna, ran toward the danger with him — and handed her husband a key tool to help defeat the crook.

Theresa Mackas was departing a Chevron station on Franklin Gateway in Marietta, Georgia, on Monday night when a male appeared, asked Mackas for a ride, and then bashed her with part of a metal bed frame, WAGA-TV reported.

Investigators noted to the station that surveillance video and witness statements indicated that the male in question had been pacing near Mackas' unoccupied Chevrolet Aveo parked at the station — and then he saw his opportunity when she tried to enter her car.

'It’s what we do — help. We were running through people that were just standing around in a parking lot.'

"I was just, 'Help! Help!'" Mackas later told the station. "He and I were wrestling, and we fell to the concrete. I was screaming as loud as I could, but nobody around the gas station came."

After about a minute into the attack, Gary and Anna Edwards and their family were walking out of a Cracker Barrel across the street — and they heard Mackas' cries for help, WAGA said.

"And we heard a lady scream bloody murder ... and I saw across the road this guy on top of this lady," Gary recalled to the station.

Gary took off running across the road — as did Anna, WAGA noted.

And Gary — all 66 years of him — flat-out bulldozed the brute, later identified as 32-year-old Rico Riley of Smyrna, the station said.

Mackas likely won't soon forget Gary's war cry, telling WAGA that "the next thing I heard was, 'Get the hell off of her right now!'"

Gary noted to the station that he "knocked him over, and then there was a little tussle on the ground."

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Image source: Marietta (Ga.) Police Department

Police said the suspect ran off to a nearby intersection — and actually tried to carjack another vehicle, according to WAGA.

Worse still, a couple and a 2-year-old child were inside the Toyota RAV4 stopped at an intersection, the station said.

But Anna, Gary's wife, came to the rescue in a big way.

Gary noted to WAGA that she "met me at the edge of the road, gave me her gun. I rounded the vehicle that he was trying to get into on the passenger side."

Now armed, Gary ordered the crook to the ground and held him at gunpoint, the station said.

"He's spread-eagle, put [his] hands down, and was begging and pleading [for me] to let him go," Gary recalled to WAGA with a smile.

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Anna told the station the she and her husband acted on instinct.

"It’s what we do — help," she told WAGA. "We were running through people that were just standing around in a parking lot."

Gary added to the station that "it’s what people should do if somebody's in danger."

After police arrived and took Riley away, he was booked into the Cobb County Adult Detention Center and charged with attempted armed robbery, attempted robbery by snatching, cruelty to children in the third degree, and possession of cocaine, WAGA reported.

The station said it isn't known when Riley will appear in court, and police did not release information about the victims.

This story has been updated.

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Dave Urbanski

Dave Urbanski

Sr. Editor, News

Dave Urbanski is a senior editor for Blaze News.
@DaveVUrbanski →