Meriwether County Great-Grandmother Beaten in Her Home

MERIWETHER COUNTY, Ga. — Sheriff’s detectives are looking for up to four robbers who broke into a home in Meriwether County and beat and burned an 83-year-old woman.

It happened late Thursday night along Forest Road.

"I can't believe somebody would set a grandmother on fire,” the victim’s daughter-in-law Beth Dow said.

The sheriff says three men and a woman kicked in the back door and attacked Dorothy Dow as she was lying in bed.

"These suspects began to demand money from Miss Dow. She pleaded with them that she didn't have any money. They began to brutally beat her,” Sheriff Chuck Smith said.

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The family says Dow’s right and left arms were broken, and she had cuts and bruises all over her face.

The sheriff says the robbers then poured a flammable liquid on the victim and lit it. But Beth Dow says her mother-in-law is a survivor.

"She remembered she had a gallon of water she filled her breathing machine with. With those broken hands, she took that top off the gallon of water and poured it on her head to put out the flames,” Dow said.

The victim also managed to crawl to another room to get her cellphone and call 911.  The sheriff says Dow’s family owns a lot covered with blueberry bushes, and they pay locals cash to pick them. Detectives believe the attackers may have been former employees.

The Sheriff’s Office has leads they are following up on.

Dow’s family says she is recovering but may be hospitalized for weeks. %

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