MELBOURNE, Fla. (WSVN) — A Central Florida woman found herself in handcuffs after being accused of holding two teenage boys at gunpoint.
15-year-old Brayden and his friend witnessed the frightening moments firsthand; the woman told them, multiple times, that she was going to blow their heads off.
“She said that she was going to blow our brains out and said that if we didn’t listen to her, then she would shoot and that she was going to blow our head off,” he said.
The eighth graders went to go fishing at a nearby pond in Melbourne when the woman, who lives near the pond, pointed a long black pellet gun at them.
“I thought it was a real gun. She was going to shoot us and kill us,” said Brayden. “And the fact that she was saying she was going to blow her head off. You can’t do that with a pellet gun. So I really thought it was real.”
According to deputies, Donna Elkins stood over them with the long gun before ordering the two boys to get on the ground.
Brayden, who already had a broken arm after falling off his electric bike, complied quickly. That’s when the 59-year-old called 911, telling dispatchers there were two boys trespassing in her backyard.
“When she came out, I was just trying to do whatever she said, just hoping she would not shoot us,” he said.
At the end of the confrontation, however, she would be the one walking away in handcuffs. According to property lines, the teens were 30 feet off her property and not in her backyard.
Brayden, who didn’t want to appear on camera, shared his experience in hopes to prevent it from happening again.
“What she did was wrong, and she’s been on my mind for the past couple days,” he said. “It’s been hard.”
Elkins has since been charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and two charges of false imprisonment.
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