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‘Please don’t shoot my mom!’ 4-year-old pleads to armed men during home invasion

Posted at 1:41 PM, Sep 25, 2017
and last updated 2017-09-25 13:41:33-04

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- A four-year-old and her mother say they were held at gunpoint while visiting family in North Memphis this week.

It happened Wednesday around 7 p.m. at the four-year-old's grandfather's house, according to WREG.

Two masked men with guns stormed into the home as the family was gathered in a bedroom looking through photo albums.

"He held the gun to my head, cocked me to the side on this side right here, told me he was gonna shoot me," Melba Orange, four-year-old Zalah's mother, said.

Orange said she wasn't the only one the men held at gunpoint. She said they pointed guns at her sister, her father, and even her daughter.

"She was yelling, 'Please don't shoot my mom! Please don't shoot us!"

The men wanted the $12,000 in cash Orange's father had from selling his home in order to pay for his wife's funeral.

"They knew exactly what bags to look for, they knew exactly how much money to get," said Orange.

She thinks that might have something to do with the two family acquaintances that were with them that night, but who left with the gunmen.

"How heartless can you be? They knew what that money was for."

As for her daughter, Orange said she only hopes she isn't traumatized by the experience. It's already taking its toll on her.

"I don't know what to do, what to feel. I'm just going second by second."

Orange has created an online fundraiser to pay for her mother's funeral.