Tania Dall / Eyewitness News
NEW ORLEANS -- While neighbors living on this quiet Lakeview block slept, three men driving by spotted a couple sitting outside, and that's when the nightmare began just doors down from where Dixie lives.
"We were all asleep and that's what's scary. You don’t know what's going on when you're asleep," said Dixie, who wanted to keep her last name private. "Robbed at gunpoint, bound and tied and taken from their house and they had to go to the ATM and get money out.”
The New Orleans Police Department says the victims were forced to withdraw cash from Whitney and Chase banks ATMs.
"They had the gun shoved in his side, and he has bruises,” Dixie said.
Then the three robbers took off with electronics and two stolen cars.
"What we're concerned about are the home invasions,” said Commander Henry Dean of NOPD’s 3rd District. “Nobody has resisted and nobody has gotten hurt, but at what step does it escalate?"
Dean said Saturday's crime may be connected to three similar armed home invasions: the first on Rosemary off Canal Boulevard, a second on Bienville Street, and a third in Jefferson Parish on Rosa Avenue, where an elderly couple's caretaker was woken up and taken to an ATM at gunpoint, also by three men.
Now authorities are looking for 19-year-old Charles Adams in connection with two of the four home invasions.
"Jefferson Parish was able to collect some DNA evidence and through that and some other methods they were able to get an identification. They gave us that identification and sure enough one of the victims on Woodlawn just immediately picked him out of six photographs," Dean said.
"I'm just really surprised and shocked that they didn't get killed with what they told me,” said Joan Gardebled, a Lakeview resident.
Gardebled has spent most of her life on Woodlawn Place.
"I've just never heard of anything like that happening in Lakeview or Mid-City, with the guns and the hostage situation and the kidnapping, and going to the ATM."
While detectives try to catch the trio who continue to prey on innocent victims, this Lakeview homeowner says it’s her duty to warn others and help put this brazen group of criminals behind bars.
"I don't want to feel intimidated in my own house, scared,” Dixie said.
If you know anything about the crimes that can help police, call Crimestoppers at 504.822.1111.
