‘She was alive ... I couldn’t get a response,’ says woman at scene of Lizella attack

Sharon Trice had no idea that her neighbors had just been attacked — or that one was bleeding to death — as she backed out of her garage in western Bibb County on Tuesday afternoon.

But then Trice noticed a man parked on her street, Moncrief Road, a north-south thoroughfare that connects Columbus Road and U.S. 80 near Lake Tobesofkee.

The man, a painter, asked if Trice knew the Hughes couple three doors down.

Trice, 65, said she did.

The Hugheses, Sanders and Vivian, both in their early 70s, have owned their place on the east side of Lizella since 1986.

Then the painter, who apparently happened by, told Trice that they had been assaulted — and that if he’d had a gun he would have shot the guy he had seen hurting them.

Trice dialed 911.

After a Bibb sheriff’s deputy pulled up and chased away the man suspected of attacking the Hugheses, Trice walked down to the couple’s house and went in.

“I saw Mrs. Hughes on the floor, and I saw her feet move,” Trice told The Telegraph in the hours after the 2:30 p.m. attack. “I knew she was alive, but I could not get a response.”

Vivian Hughes later died.

Sanders Hughes was seriously wounded.

What precipitated the bloodshed remained unclear on Wednesday as authorities continued their investigation, which led suspect Gavin Williams to barricade himself in a nearby house.

Williams, 27, was later shot and killed by police.

This story was originally published April 26, 2017 at 3:11 PM with the headline "‘She was alive ... I couldn’t get a response,’ says woman at scene of Lizella attack."