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Home Invaders Hit Million Dollar Homes Miles Apart, Get Away With Cash

Posted: 4:25 pm EST January 31, 2008Updated: 5:16 pm EST January 31, 2008

Two armed robberies had one thing in common; both of the victims were wealthy.

The crooks knew where to find cash fast. They targeted two different houses in Ormond Beach and Ormond By The Sea.

Both of the victims are business owners. One has a tree service company and the other owns a concrete business. And in one case, not only did they clean out the victim's house, they tied him up, walked him across the street to a tugboat he lives on and cleaned that out, too.

Thursday afternoon the safe was still open and money wrappers were still scattered at the home of Rick Kranz.

"He had the gun pointed, stuck right between my eyes and said 'if you move, I'll f'n kill ya,'" said Krantz.

Around 2:30am Thursday, three masked men burst through the back door of Kranz's Ormond Beach home.

"There was a wooden jewelry box up here. He had me open up the safe, took all the money out of the safe," Kranz recounted. "They were just interested in money."

Three hours later it happened again. This time the victim was Gordon McCarthy, a locally well-known man who sometimes goes by the nick-name "Popeye".

When the thieves dragged him to his boat, he tried to break free. But they beat him and choked him.

"It's certainly alarming that we would get two cases in one night within a few miles of each other," said Sgt. Kenny Hayes of the Ormond Beach Police Department.

Ormond Beach police said they couldn't remember the last time they had a home invasion in their city. Considering the targets, though, and the somewhat calm, controlled nature of the thieves, police said it's possible it was not their first time committing this kind of crime.

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