She rang the wall-crank phone two times before being shot twice in the face from the same window. One bullet entered her right cheek and exited behind her left ear. The other went in just below her lip, breaking her jaw and splintering out several teeth before lodging under her tongue. She dropped to her knees but soon managed to get back on her feet. She ran to get a pistol from the living room, but was blinded by her own blood. She heard the killer tearing loose the rusted screen wire on the back porch. She thought she was going to be killed, so she stumbled toward her bedroom near the front of the house to leave a note. Meanwhile, the killer ran to the back of the house and made his way up the steps and into the side-screened porch through the back screen door. She heard the killer coming through the kitchen window, so she turned around and ran through the dining room, through the bedroom, down a hallway, through another bedroom, and then into the living room and out the front door, leaving behind a "virtual river of blood" and teeth throughout the house and across the street. Barefoot and still in her blood-soaked nightgown, she ran across the street to her sister and brother-in-law's house. Because no one was home, she ran 50 yards more to A. V. Prater's house. Prater answered her call for help. She gasped, "Virgil's dead", then collapsed.