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Charges Unlikely For Store Owner In Fatal Shooting

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By VALERIE KALFRIN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 28, 2008

Kenneth Charles Heidkamp

SEFFNER - It appears unlikely that criminal charges will be filed against the owner of a drive-through beverage and snacks store who fatally shot a man he said was trying to rob him Monday night, a Hillsborough County sheriff's spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Cres Vigil, 46, was working alone about 6:45 p.m. Monday at CNK Beverage Pit when he was attacked, said his wife, Karla Vigil.

She said her husband has a knot on his temple and on the back of his head from being struck with a homemade bludgeon: a can of French-cut green beans stuffed inside a sock.

"He's pretty shaken up," Vigil said. "It's not something he wanted to do."

She said her husband was waiting for a customer's truck to pull farther into the drive-through bay of the store at 12002 E. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. when a masked man ran in through the exit.

The man, identified Tuesday as Kenneth Charles Heidkamp, 19, of Seffner, struck Cres Vigil in the head with the sock stuffed with a can, the sheriff's office said.

The blow dented the can, Karla Vigil said. "That's how hard he hit my husband. What was my husband going to do?"

The sheriff's office said Cres Vigil fired on the attacker, striking him in the side. Heidkamp collapsed about 75 feet away and was pronounced dead at Brandon General Hospital about 7:10 p.m.

Attempts to locate relatives were unsuccessful. Court records show Heidkamp was scheduled to be arraigned July 10 on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery.

Karla Vigil said she took her husband to be treated at a hospital Monday and that he did not learn until Tuesday that Heidkamp had died.

The couple have kept a gun at the business ever since a man held up Karla Vigil at gunpoint a year ago. In that incident, the gunman obtained no money because she screamed and witnesses chased away the robber.

The couple also installed security measures such as spotlights, Karla Vigil said.

Despite the two robbery attempts, she said they don't plan to sell the business they have 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.

Security experts in general do not recommend that store owners keep weapons, said Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores, a trade association based in Alexandria, Va.

Rather, they advise using a drop safe and posting signs about the minimal amount of cash available, keeping stores well-lit, removing signs from windows so any trouble is visible to passers-by, and installing fencing to reduce escape routes, Lenard said.

"It just comes down to minimizing the reward and maximizing the risk," he said.

The state attorney's office, which will have a say in whether Vigil is charged, declined to comment Tuesday, citing the ongoing investigation.

News Channel 8 reporter Krista Klaus contributed to this report. Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800 or vkalfrin@tampatrib.com.

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