GADSDEN — Two men wanted in connection with the beating and stabbing of a 74-year-old Plantersville man are in custody.

Dallas County Chief Deputy Randy Pugh confirmed the capture of William James Goodman, 20, and Jonathan Samuel Wayne Pitts, 24, Wednesday afternoon in Gadsden.

“We are going to pick them up now,” Pugh said in a telephone conversation late Wednesday afternoon.

Gadsden Police Capt. Regina May told a reporter for the Gadsden Times the two wanted men were arrested after the vehicle they were in broke down at a local convenience store near the intersection of Third Street and Meighan Boulevard by Gadsden police officers.

May said the police department received a call from a detective from another agency that the vehicle was broken down, police officers responded and took the men into custody without incident.

The two men are wanted on charges of first-degree burglary, attempted murder, kidnapping and first-degree theft of property.

Goodman and Pitts were believed to have been traveling in a 1992 Chevrolet C-1500 blue pick-up truck with a 17-year-old female.

Pugh said the female was with them in Gadsden and taken into custody. No charges were pending against her at press time.

Dallas County Sheriff Harris Huffman said the two men are believed to have knocked on the door of the victim, who authorities have declined to identify, at a residence in the 10000 block of Dallas County Road 63 in Plantersville and asked the man to take them to get some gasoline.

When the man refused, the suspects kicked open the door and hit the victim with something, forcing the elderly man to his knees.

Huffman said the attackers ripped apart some extension cords, tied up the victim and put him in his truck, the blue 1992 Chevrolet.

Investigators believe the two drove from Plantersville to Jones, Burnsville, down River Road to Arrowhead Road, where there is a large lake.

Huffman said one of the men, armed with a knife, attempted to cut the victim’s throat, but the older man moved and suffered cuts to his shoulder. The suspected stabbed the victim multiple times in the chest and back until the elderly man managed to roll down a bank into the lake.

One of the other attackers, who Huffman said was armed with a gun, held the man’s head under water until he felt the victim go limp.

Huffman said the 74-year-old man pretended to be dead. The two suspects left in the truck. The victim pulled himself to the side of the road, where a lady passing by in her vehicle saw him and called authorities.

The victim was taken to Vaughan Regional Medical Center, where he was treated and kept for observation, then released.