Sounds Like They Messed With The Wrong People

[breitee]

Family In Fear After Father Shot And House Burned

Posted: March 13, 2008 05:57 PM CDT

Updated: March 13, 2008 06:36 PM CDT


Robert Hindman was shot in the neck over a money dispute allegedly by his former boss.



The family who lived in the home is dealing with the fire and with a husband and father who was shot.



The man accused of the shooting, Ralph Taitingfong, was in jail when the house was burned.





A family is living under a death threat after a husband and father was shot and their house was set on fire.  The News On 6's Emory Bryan reports one man has been arrested, but others haven't been found.

The house was boarded up on Thursday afternoon to keep people out, but there's nothing left to steal.  The family who lived here is dealing with the fire and with a husband and father who was shot.  The trouble started with an argument over $100.

You can forgive Melissa Hindman for not being able to think clearly.  She's worn out tired.

"My husband got shot and then not two weeks later somebody comes and burns my house down," said Melissa Hindman.

And, it's even worse than it sounds.  The family lost everything they had in the fire, while they were at the hospital.  The one thing they saved is a picture of Robert Hindman before he was shot in the neck and left paralyzed.

"I heard the gunshot go off and he's laying on the floor telling me he can't breathe.  He can't feel his legs," said Melissa Hindman.

And that's not all.  Detectives believe the shooting and the fire are connected.  And, while the shooting might have been a spur of the moment decision, the arson was not.

Fire investigators say gasoline had been poured throughout the house, so it was clearly arson.  Now they need to know why it was burned and answering that question may lead them to who was responsible.

The man accused of the shooting, Ralph Taitingfong, was already in jail when the house was burned.  Melissa Hindman says Robert was shot after Taitingfong, her husband's former employer, came over demanding money.

"It escalated to the point that my 14-year-old girl came around the corner and said don't talk to my father like that and he pointed a gun at my daughter's head," said Melissa Hindman.

Now Hindman is left to care for her husband, who still might not survive, while protecting her children, and trying to replace their belongings, with no insurance to boot.

An account has been set up for the Hindman family at Arvest Bank.

They are in a safe place, staying away from their home until police and arson investigators sort all this out.  

[Conan71]

Terrible for the family.

There's another horribly-written piece by Ch. 6.  I'm still a little confused because they didn't do a good job at hammering home the point.  Let me get this straight, he was shot in the neck and paralysed, his house was destroyed by fire.  Did I read that correctly, they were rather obtuse on those points.  

[breitee]

From the Whirled.


Fire follows gunfire

by: NICOLE MARSHALL World Staff Writer
3/14/2008  12:00 AM


A Tulsa woman tries to soldier on after her husband was shot and their home was burned.


With her husband paralyzed and fighting for his life in a hospital after being shot in the neck, Melissa Hindman didn't think things could get any worse.

But someone broke into their home last weekend, poured several cans of gasoline on their belongings and set the house ablaze.

"It's not enough that I have to deal with what happened to my husband, and then someone burns down everything I own," Hindman said Thursday. "Now we are homeless."

She is doing what she can to persevere for the couple's four children, ages 14, 13, 10 and 8, while staying by her husband's bedside. Friends and family members have started an assistance fund.

The fire remains under investigation. Authorities do not know whether it was related to the shooting.

Robert Hindman was shot about 7 p.m. Feb. 25 at the family's home in the 2400 block of East Fourth Place.

Ralph Taitingfong Jr., who had worked with him on contracting jobs, was arrested and jailed on charges of shooting with intent to kill and feloniously pointing a firearm.

Melissa Hindman said the shooting resulted from an argument over $100. She alleged that Taitingfong pointed a gun at their 14-year-old daughter at one time during the dispute.

"At that point, the money situation went out the door. It was not about that anymore. Robert was not going to let that happen to our children," she said.

The couple then focused on getting Taitingfong to leave, she said, but her husband was shot in the neck.

The bullet severed his spinal cord and tore through his esophagus. He cannot breathe without a ventilator and has pneumonia.

"He is not even close to being out of the woods yet," Melissa Hindman said. "That is what is scary."

She has been staying at the hospital with her husband. She sent her three youngest children to stay with family members in another county, and her oldest daughter is staying with a friend.

Luckily, no one was at their home when the family suffered its next blow.

Hindman and her daughter were at a fast-food restaurant near her husband's hospital late Saturday when a neighbor called to say their house was on fire.

Fire Capt. Larry Bowles said firefighters went to the fire at 11:36 p.m. Saturday. When they arrived, flames were coming from the house.

Firefighters found three or four cans of gasoline inside the home.

"It was definitely an arson," Bowles said.

Melissa Hindman went to the house the next day to try to salvage any belongings.

"It was just horrifying. Everything was burned," she said.

"We went inside, and we were watching the ceiling because it looked like it might fall. So we went outside and we heard a crack, and all of a sudden the ceiling fell in."

This is not the first time the family has struggled through tragedy.

In 2004, the Hindman family was chosen by The Salvation Army to receive assistance through the Neediest Families Fund, which is featured in the Tulsa World each year before Christmas.

The Hindmans had been forced to leave their home after Robert Hindman suffered a heart attack that left him unable to work.

The couple also had to struggle with additional medical bills when one of their sons, who was 7 at the time, was struck in the head with a golf club. The impact broke his skull in three places, and he required extensive surgery.

Anyone wishing to help the family with hospital bills can donate to the Hindman Family Support Fund at any Arvest Bank branch.


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Nicole Marshall 581-8459
nicole.marshall@tulsaworld.com

[inteller]

I'm not feeling a lot of sympathy here after reading the son was struck in the head with a golf club.  Who did that and why?

[Wrinkle]

I don't want to pound on anyone suffering this way, but 'bad luck' wouldn't wouldn't seem to cover it well.