88-year-old testifies about robbery

Eighty-eight-year-old Edward Pringle needed a hand to get up into the witness stand Tuesday. But he needed no assistance in telling the jury how four strangers barged into his Five Mile Prairie home in 2005 and held a gun into his ribs.

Pringle testified Tuesday in the start of the first-degree robbery trial of 47-year-old Steven P. Unruh. He had been wanted for more than a year when he was arrested last year while playing in a band outside of Tulsa, Okla.

Karen J. Applegate, 42, also known as Karen Sternberg, pleaded guilty last October. She had been arrested in April, 2006, in Shawnee, Okla., a year after she, Unruh, and two other women forced their way into Pringle’s home on Five Mile Prairie and robbed him and his wife at gunpoint, according to court records.

Pamela A. Drake, 44, and 36-year-old Dalinda M. Combs, pleaded guilty to reduced charges in December, 2005.

Pringle said he had just returned home from a church sale on May 7, 2005, when he heard a faint rap on his door. When Pringle went to answer, he found a man and a woman.

The man, later identified as Unruh, said the woman with him had broken her ankle and they wanted to use the telephone.

Pringle’s wife told Edward Pringle to shut the door, but the couple pushed their way in, Pringle said.

“I was pushed back and this gentleman came in,” Pringle said, gesturing to Unruh. “A gun was stuck in my ribs. He pulled the clip out and showed me the bullets. He said, ‘I mean business.’ “

According to court records, Applegate, Combs and Drake ransacked the home while Unruh kept the Pringles occupied. They were later captured on video cameras at local stores using Pringle’s debit card.

The trial will continue this week before Superior Court Judge Sam Cozza.