Bellefontaine Neighbors police seek girl, 13, in shooting that left two critically wounded
- By Valerie Schremp Hahn and Kim Bell St. Louis Post-Dispatch
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was updated at 10 a.m. to correct condition of both victims. An earlier report from police that one victim had died was in error and has been corrected by police.
BELLEFONTAINE NEIGHBORS • Police early Wednesday morning said they haven't been able to find a 13-year-old girl suspected of shooting and critically wounding a couple in their 70s during a beauty supply store robbery the day before.
The girl was considered armed and dangerous. She apparently ran from the store carrying a pistol. Police search dogs lost her scent in a wooded area between the store and the Castle Point neighborhood on Tuesday afternoon.
The critically injured man and woman, who live in O'Fallon, Mo., were being treated at a St. Louis hospital after being shot once in the torso area, said Detective Lt. Shawn Applegate. Their names were not released.
Applegate said early Wednesday that he had been told by the hospital that the woman had died overnight, but police have since corrected that to say both victims remain alive. Bellefontaine Neighbors Police Chief Jeremy Ihler said he didn't know how the miscommunication with the hospital staff happened.
The couple were shot after 4 p.m. Tuesday at Kings Beauty Supply, 10073 Lewis and Clark Boulevard, near Chambers Road. They live in O'Fallon, Mo., and are the store owner's parents who frequently worked at the story.
Bellefontaine Neighbors Police said this surveillance image shows a girl they want to talk to in connection with a shooting at a Bellefontaine Neighbors beauty supply store on Tuesday, July 19, 2016.
Police knew the identity of the girl, whom police were calling a “person of interest." She gave police a fictitious name earlier in the day when they talked to her about an earlier disturbance at the store. They sent her on her way, however, because the store's owner didn't want to press charges.
When the shooting happened, it was actually the girl's third time in the store in a six- or eight-hour period that day, Applegate said.
Earlier in the day, the girl and another juvenile went to the business and stole some items, believed to be hair extensions, and the couple got the items back and kicked the girls out, warning them to stay away. They did not report the shoplifting to police. Later, the girls returned to the store and the couple called police, reporting a disturbance.
Police responded, spotted the girls on an adjacent parking lot, and took one of the girls into custody on a previous juvenile warrant. The other girl was released on a formal warning for trespassing, with the couple's approval, Applegate said. The couple in the store are Korean and don't speak much English, so police spoke on the phone with the couple's daughter, the store owner, who told them what her parents had reported.
Police believe that the girl who was released on a warning later returned to the store and shot the couple.
A witness saw her enter the store, "then less than a minute later came running out, swinging in her right hand a revolver as she ran," Appelgate said.
She was last seen in the area carrying a pistol and items believed taken from the store. She was running in the direction of the Castle Point neighborhood.
After the shootings Tuesday, multiple people called 911, including an employee of a neighboring business who went to check on the couple and discovered them wounded.
The grainy photo of the girl, released by police, was taken from a surveillance video inside the store. She is approximately 4 feet 9 inches tall and 130 to 150 pounds.
Police worked overnight to try to find her. They went to her last known address, where her mother lives, and no one answered. But a neighbor told police the mother had sent the daughter to live with the girl's father for the summer, saying she was fed up with the girl's behavior.
Applegate said the same family has run the store at that location for at least a decade.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call St. Louis Regional Crimestoppers at 1-866-371-8477 or tips@stlrcs.org
Ashly Jost of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
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