By Rebecca Roberts
ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Missouri (KTVI) — A Good Samaritan is recovering after being held at knifepoint by a homeless man he was trying to help. It seems the man’s good nature put him at risk, while the suspect’s actions landed him behind bars.
In an exclusive interview with FOX 2, the victim says this terrifying experience hasn’t crushed his generous spirit.
Erv Yoder grew up Amish in Pennsylvania, where helping others is simply a way of life. He says, “I’m a believer, and God asked us to help poor people.”
When a wounded homeless man approached him at a Warrenton laundromat and asked for a ride to the hospital, the former Amish man was glad to help.
Yoder explains, “It looked like he slid on asphalt. He said he got pushed out of a car, a moving car. I took him to the hospital, he begged me to wait. He said it’s cold out, I have no way back, I’ll be stuck out in this cold, it was 18 degrees. And I actually waited over two hours for this kid.”
After the hospital trip, Yoder took him for a hot meal and offered to drive him to a friend’s house in Wentzville. That’s when Yoder noticed the homeless man, 25 year-old Joshua Frillman, holding a knife.
“I’m just gripping as hard as I could, trying to keep it away from me,” Yoder recalls, “he wanted the rest of my money.”
Wentzville Police Spokesman Paul West confirms, “Mr. Yoder gave him some money, he grabbed it and ran, and Mr. Yoder jumped in his vehicle and locked the doors and drove away.”
Frillman got away, but not for long. Police were able to identify the 25 year-old from his trip to the hospital on Saturday. According to Wentzville Police, the next day, he stole his ex-girlfriend’s car, and on Monday, he was stopped by highway patrol in Phelps County, who quickly determined that he was wanted, and the car was stolen.
Frillman is now being held in the St. Charles County Adult Correctional Facility on a $50,000 bond, charged with robbery and tampering with a motor vehicle.
Yoder says he’ll be a lot more careful now, but won’t let this one incident change him: “I was somewhat naïve, I believe, but it has a lot to do with how I was raised. You just never worried about things like that when you were helping somebody.”
Yoder adds, “I had one question for him, and it’s ‘why?’ He would have got more out of me by being nice to me than by doing what he did,” says Yoder.
Yoder had planned to give the homeless man a place to sleep, and some money.
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