4 arrested in robbery of newspaper deliveryman in Charles County - DC Breaking Local News Weather Sports FOX 5 WTTG

Charles County Sheriff's detectives have arrested four men from southern Maryland and charged them in the brutal beating and robbery of a longtime Washington Post delivery man.

"They beat me so bad, I went blind," says John Bergling, who says he's been delivering The Washington Post in the middle of the night in Charles County for the past 20 years. "I completely lost my eyesight."

Bergling was beaten and robbed on Ryon Court in Ryon Woods, a townhouse community in Waldorf, around 2:40 a.m. on Sunday, August 5.

"I felt that my head was a punching bag," he explains. "I mean, I cannot tell you how many times, it was like, ‘Bam, bam, bam, bam' like this in the back of my head. Several of them."

After the final beating, robbed of everything - including his wedding ring - and stripped naked, the 63-year-old Bergling says he literally crawled to the end of the street where a sheriff's substation just happened to be.

"I guess I was in so much pain, but I was trying to stay alive," he says.

Charles County Sheriff's detectives have arrested four of five suspects in the case. Young men from Waldorf and Lexington Park in St. Mary's County. The fourth man in custody just turned himself in Wednesday.

"We picked up one and (he) confessed that he was involved in it," says Charles County Sheriff Rex Coffey. "Got some names of the other ones. Then we were fortunate enough to catch one of them pawning the gentleman's rings that was robbed. And the officers came and took that knucklehead into custody too, so it turned out real well."

Sheriff Coffey says one of the four named suspects, Derrick Jamar Thompson, a 20-year-old from Waldorf, will also be charged in the robbery of a 7-Eleven in Waldorf.

All four suspects in the attack on Ryon Court are now locked up in the Charles County Detention Center. Each is charged with robbery and assault and held on $100,000 bond.

As for Bergling, he wonders whether he will ever feel safe again doing his job.

"It robs you of your sense of well being," he tells us. "You just don't know. Somebody like me, I'll always be looking over my shoulder."

Bergling says he is nursing several broken ribs, a broken nose and is told the retinas in both eyes may be detached.

Sheriff Coffey says his detectives know who the fifth suspect is and expect to have him in custody soon.