In a frightening scenario, Columbus native and teen fiddle phenom Ruby Jane Smith and her mother, JoBelle Smith, were carjacked and held at gunpoint near midnight Thursday in Houston, Texas, following a show at the Dosey Doe with Paul Thorn.
Mother and daughter, who reside in Austin, Texas, had pulled up to a gated condominium community where they were to stay with a friend. When JoBelle Smith rolled down the window to enter the gate code into the security keypad, a man reached through the window and held a gun to her head.
“I was afraid he was going to take Ruby Jane,” JoBelle Smith said by phone from Austin Saturday night. “There was no way I was going to let that happen.”
The thief fled in the Smiths’ 2004 Chevrolet Trailblazer, stranding the two women on the side of the road with no purses, cellphones, funds or proof of identify.
“He took everything,” said Smith, “even the jewelry off of us. He got almost everything that meant anything musically to Ruby Jane. It had been a solo show, so all her instruments were there — a violin custom-made for her, her 12-string guitar, her microphones, pedals, harmonicas … even the Christmas presents I’d already packed to come home to Columbus.”
The thief, described by JoBelle as a young black male wearing a dark hoodie by, also took Nikon camera and video equipment.
Immediately following the incident, the pair ran down the street until they found a shop owner who had closed but not yet left the premises. He contacted police.
“It was devastating really,” admitted JoBelle Smith. “Ruby Jane was strong, but we’re still processing it.”
Houston police do not seem optimistic about recovering the stolen equipment, JoBelle said, but the two women, with the help of friends, are checking with pawn shops in the area in hopes of locating at least some of it.
Because the perpetrator escaped with keys to their home in Austin, the Smiths are staying with friends until the locks are changed.
As traumatizing as the experience has been, JoBelle did say they are trying to focus on being thankful.
“It could have been so much worse; at least we came out physically unscratched.”
JoBelle Smith is the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Perrin Smith of Columbus.
At 14, Ruby Jane and her mother moved from Columbus to Austin and began playing in Ray Benson’s Asleep at the Wheel, where she met Willie Nelson and toured many times in his Family Band. Now 17, she is developing her own career as a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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