On the night of June 25, the clerk at Star's Quik Chek store was killed during an armed robbery. | PxHere.com
On the night of June 25, the clerk at Star's Quik Chek store was killed during an armed robbery. | PxHere.com
Star, North Carolina, police are hoping surveillance tape helps them find the killer of a Quik Chek clerk.
Laura Whitman had recently started working as a cashier at the store. In her Saturday shift, at around 10 p.m., she was shot and killed during a robbery, despite appearing to comply with the criminal’s demands.
“We have retrieved the video surveillance from inside the store,” Star Police Chief David Kime told WFMY 2 News. “You can see some talking. We don’t know what was said. It appeared that the clerk was very compliant. The suspect pulled out a gun, jumped across the counter, came back there, she opened the door, he took some money, and then he shot her and took some more money and then left.”
The senseless death has relatives calling for punishment.
“My mom was pretty much a sweet woman,” Courtney Rodriguez, Whitman’s daughter, told WFMY 2 News. “She was a woman that you could ask for something and she would give it to you. She would give you a shirt off her back, you know. She would always. She was very caring."
She urged witnesses to share any tips they might have about the crime.
“I just hope they catch him because he doesn’t need to be out,” Rodriguez said, according to WFMY 2. “He doesn’t need to be free. He doesn’t deserve to be free.”
No arrest has been made, and flowers line the front of the closed store in a show of sympathy for Whitman.
Local police departments are working with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation to solve the homicide. Anyone who might have information is asked to call Biscoe Police Department or Star Police Department at 910-428-9224.
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