By Rupert Howell
An additional $500 has been added to the reward being offered for information leading to those responsible for the robbery of Pauline McCullar in the Mt. Olivet Community Saturday, January 30 bringing the total to $1,000.
Investigators are looking for two white teenagers who were dressed in full camouflage, one tall and one short.
The recently widowed McCullar and her late husband operated a peach orchard that adjoins her home located away from the main road in southeast Panola County between Dees Road and Highway 315.
The two males obviously were aware that a large sum of cash was kept in a safe in the home. They overcame her that morning, had her open the safe and tied her up using zip ties.
McCullar said this week the perpetrators were more nervous than she was and said she asked them, “Why are y’all so nervous,” stating they were both shaking.
They took McCullar’s car and cell phone, throwing the phone out near Terza and Highway 6 east and abandoning the car further down Terza in a field.
Asked if she would continue to manage the peach orchard that she and her late husband, Tom, established she replied, “I’m going ahead. I can’t just quit. We built this house and developed this orchard”.
The 22-acre orchard has three wells that service the irrigation system as well as a wind machine that wakes the countryside when it comes on in the spring during freezing weather to help protect blooms and small fruit.
Two orchard specialists were expected to arrive from Mexico this week and neighbors and friends are offering to assist with chores that go along with management, maintenance, harvest and selling of the crop.
The peaches are sold at farmer’s markets and stands in Oxford and Batesville.
Sheriff Department investigators have sent potential evidence to the Mississippi Crime Lab but had yet to receive any results Monday according to Chief Deputy Chris Franklin.
Meanwhile McCullar has returned to her job at Baptist Hospital in Oxford and installed a security system at her home.