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Family Back At Work After Owner Kills Apparent Robber
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Published: May 27, 2008
Updated: 05/27/2008 01:44 pm
Kenneth Charles Heidkamp
SEFFNER – Just hours after a store owner shot and killed an apparent robber, the owner's wife and daughter were back at work.
Karla Vigil, 47, said her husband, Cres Vigil, 46, was at home this morning. "He's pretty shaken up," she said. "It's not something he wanted to do."
Vigil said her husband had been working alone about 6:45 p.m. Monday, when he was attacked at the CNK Beverage Pit, 12002 E. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. She said her husband was waiting for a customer's truck to pull farther into the drive-through bay when a masked man ran in through the exit of the drive-through beverage business. The driver took off, she said.
Vigil said the would-be robber swung at her husband, striking him in the head. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office previously said the assailant was unarmed.
Deputies now say the attacker, identified as Kenneth Charles Heidkamp, 19, of Seffner, struck Cres Vigil in the head with a can of French-cut green beans in a sock.
"They found two cans of green beans in a sock. They were dented. That's how hard he hit my husband," Karla Vigil said.
Her husband has a knot on his temple and on the back of his head, Vigil said.
Vigil said her husband shot the attacker and didn't know the man had died until this morning.
"My husband is a very good man," she said. "He has a heart of gold."
She said the couple have kept the gun at the business because she was held up at gunpoint a year ago. In that incident, the robber obtained no money because Vigil screamed, and homeless people hanging around the retention pond behind the business chased him away.
Despite the two robbery attempts, Vigil says they don't plan to sell the business they've owned for two years. "There are a lot of good people here. We've made a lot of friends. This could happen anywhere," she said.
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