Whitfield County men allegedly steal XBox during armed robbery

When he opened the door, Michael Scott Templeton found one of his friends on the porch. And a man he didn’t know. And a woman, too.

Templeton said he invited them inside around 9 p.m. Friday. He didn’t expect the night to end with a handgun to his face and zip ties around his wrists.

But that’s what happened, Templeton told Dalton, Ga., police. He and his brother, Mitchell Lamar Hill, were sitting on their couch at 1016 Dude St. when the man he didn’t know – a man police later identified as Dikembe Olajuwon Ester – pulled out a handgun and ran toward them. Standing over the brothers, Ester pressed the gun into Templeton’s face, then into Hill’s, according to police.

The unidentified woman then bound the men’s hands, and Ester slapped his gun against the left side of Templeton’s face, Templeton later told police. When he fell on the ground, Templeton said, Ester pressed his shoe against one side of his face, digging the other side into the carpet.

“I don’t like this guy,” Ester apparently told Quindarius Jy’Kwon Fleming, the man Templeton later said was his friend, the one who made Templeton feel safe about letting the group into his house.

Ester, Fleming and the woman then took $400 in cash, two cellphones and an XBox 360 and left, according to a Dalton Police Department incident report. Later Friday night, Templeton and Hill wiggled free from their zip ties. Hill then borrowed a neighbor’s phone and called 911.

After police talked to Hill and Templeton, they found Fleming and Ester. They charged both men with armed robbery, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. The two remained in the Whitfield County Jail without bond on Monday afternoon.

Police have not yet found the woman apparently involved in the robbery.

Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at tjett@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6476.