Police: Seven people bound, robbed inside Selma home

A shotgun, several pieces of jewelry, two cell phones and more than $15,500 in cash were taken from the home, police said.

Around 3:15 a.m. Saturday, a couple in a white cargo van flagged down a patrol officer near the intersection of West Noble and South Pollock streets to report a break-in at their home on North Massey Street. Pascual Martinez, 61, had duct tape around his wrists and his wife, Angelita Martinez, 56, told the officer that she had been beaten in the face with a spray paint can.

The officer followed the couple back to their home, where they found 20-year-old Elizar Hernandez bleeding from the head.

Hernandez told police he had been tied up in the dining room of the home and beaten in the head with a semi-automatic handgun by intruders wearing all black clothes and ski masks covering everything but their eyes and mouths.

Blood was found on the floor of the hall, bathroom and Hernandez's bed, police said.

Responding officers also found another man bound in a back bedroom. That man reported that a person dressed in all black with a thin build entered through a bedroom window, let three or four other intruders in through the back door and then stepped on his face while wrapping duct tape around his hands and mouth.

Three more men were found bound in a back bedroom.

Investigators believe that some of the men were co-workers whom Pascual Martinez allowed to stay at the home he shared with his wife.

Hernandez was treated and released at Johnston Medical Center.

No other information was released.

Anyone with information about the break-in is asked to call Selma police at 919-965-8189.