BOYD — Two people have been arrested in the brutal attack of an elderly Wise County man.
Investigators have charged Jimmy Ray Murrell and Roger Lee Hammons, both 49, with the attack.
They are accused of robbing 82-year-old Marvin Zimmerman, who was found bound, beaten up, and left him for dead inside his rural Wise County home.
Investigators say Murrell and Hammond have confessed to robbing the elderly man... even shocking him with a stun gun when he didn't cooperate.
"'They hit me, they knocked me down, and I was just trying to stay alive,'" he told his son Wayne.
Police believe Marvin Zimmerman waited for help for nearly three days before a concerned neighbor called 911 after seeing him bound on the floor through a window.
Zimmerman was badly injured and dehydrated.
"These people are barbarians," Wayne Zimmerman said. "They are barbarians, and they deserve everything they get."
Marvin Zimmerman is a Korean War veteran and a father of five. His son tells News 8 he grew up in New York, and was a police officer at a New York City hospital.
When he retired in 1983, Zimmerman moved to Wise County to get away from the big city.
Zimmerman had taken Jimmy Murrell into his home along with his girlfriend to help him out. Investigators believe Murrell — a convicted felon — took advantage of that friendship and recruited others to rob the elderly man.
Zimmerman's family said the men stole virtually everything from his home, and whatever wasn't taken was destroyed.
"To believe that people would do this to an 82-year-old man, it's just beyond comprehension," Wayne Zimmerman said.
E-mail ccivale@wfaa.com
Twitter @craigcivale
