After coming home from school on Wednesday, Oct. 23, K’Lynn Murray ‘27 was talking to her mom about her day when a red truck pulled up in front of her house and a man in a black hoodie stepped out. He began throwing items around in the truck before looking around on the floor. Finally, he got up and walked down the street, leaving the vehicle behind.

“Me and my mom were just staring at him because our house is filled with windows so we’re always looking out the windows, and we [were] curious about what he’s doing,” Murray said.

Half an hour later, Murray and her mom would learn that the man had shot someone in the H-E-B parking lot and stolen the truck before parking it outside her house.

“My little sister went down the street to her friend’s house so she was playing outside down the street,” Murray said. “I was like, ‘This guy’s obviously dangerous [and] my sister’s outside at a friend’s house — this is not a good situation.’ When I put those pieces together, my heart dropped and I started freaking out a bit.”

Roughly five minutes before the red truck arrived at Murray’s house at 5:20 p.m., Murray’s friend, London May ‘26, was in the H-E-B parking lot with her mom when she witnessed what she initially thought was a fight that had broken out between two parties before the police [had] separated them. After she went into the store and came back out, the two parties were still there.

“[My mom] drops me off because she’s going to get gas, so I walk in and everything’s normal,” May said. “But I noticed on my way in that there was a girl and she was yelling at a police officer. She was speaking Spanish. There were two people over here and then the lady and her boyfriend were right there and I thought they’d fought each other.”

As May drove out of the parking lot, she saw a witness talking to the police, making symbols to indicate that someone had a gun. She also noticed the urgency of the situation, which was uncharacteristic of the relatively small H-E-B near her neighborhood.

“Me and my mom thought that [was] weird,” May said. “It was interesting because there’s usually not a lot of things that happen at H-E-B. What my mom thought was that someone stole her car and her baby was in there because she was screaming. She was frantic. She was not having it. And then when we were driving, we passed a white Honda.”

The same white Honda pulled up to Murray’s house 12 minutes after the red truck arrived. The same man who had pulled up in the red truck stepped out of the passenger seat wearing a different hoodie, with what looked like a gun wrapped up in the black hoodie in his arms. He wiped what Murray believed were fingerprints off of the car door with his sleeve, then threw the black hoodie in the car. Finally, he returned to the white car and switched to a pink hoodie. Thinking that the man was about to throw evidence in their trash can, Murray’s mom went outside to see what he was doing.

“I was like, ‘Mom, don’t go outside,’” Murray said. “I was a little scared. I was just like, ‘It’s probably not the best idea.’ She’s like, ‘No, you stay in the house.’”

After Murray’s mom went outside, the man stared back at her. Believing he was dangerous, she simply waved and went back inside the house. Shortly afterward, the man and the white car’s driver drove off.

“We thought the [red] car might have broken down or something,” Murray said. “We thought we were just overreacting, but we watch a lot of Snapped shows, so we kind of [fixated] on [the situation].”

“I [ran] by K’Lynn’s house and I saw a red truck in front of her house,” May said. “I [didn’t] know if any of her family members have a red truck, but it looked like an old farm truck, [and] I [didn’t] think any of K’Lynn’s family members [were] farmers, so I didn’t know why she’d have this type of truck. I know what everyone’s cars look like, so it was only the red truck that was parked in front of her house that was weird.”

The car sat outside of Murray’s house for half an hour while Murray took a shower, during which she tried to calm down and make the best of the situation. Finally, her mom called the police, who arrived a few minutes later.

“I think [they arrived so fast] because they were already coming to get their car, because it was stolen,” Murray said. “I felt relief when the cops showed up, but during the situation, I was definitely a bit shaky, especially since my mom decided to go outside. I was like, ‘Okay, this guy’s clearly a bit crazy,’ and he was right in front of my house.”

Murray and her mom talked to the detectives for roughly an hour and a half, while the police tried to figure out the situation. They searched for fingerprints on the door and dusted items off while police dogs roamed around the house, sniffing at the red truck, where the keys were locked inside. Eventually, the police told Murray and her mom that the man was involved in a robbery. He had stolen from a woman after meeting up with her in-person to buy items she was selling online.

“It took them a minute to tell us, but they told us the guy stole this truck from a lady that was selling something on Twitter, and it was a huge robbery that had happened down at H-E-B, in the parking lot,” Murray said. “He ended up stealing the lady’s truck, stealing whatever she had, and shooting the lady. And then he drove off.”

When May ran by Murray’s house a second time, at 5:50 p.m., she saw police officers outside, and began to worry.

“I’m freaking out because I’m like, ‘Is this a violent situation?’” May said. “And [as] I’m walking, I’m texting K’Lynn.”

While May was walking, a police officer approached her to ask her questions about the red truck. She told them about what she’d seen when she first passed by the car at 5:40 p.m.

“At first, when the cops started talking to me, I was like, ‘Is K’Lynn alive right now?’” May said. “I was scared that something happened because it [was] a lot of police and the situation was intense. I was nervous. So I asked them if K’Lynn was okay and they said, ‘She’s okay.’”

The police confirmed that the situation was connected to the robbery at gunpoint at H-E-B, and asked May if she had seen the white Honda, which May’s mom had seen in the neighborhood as they were returning to their house from H-E-B.

“I go to H-E-B after work and it was really busy that day, so I’m surprised he’d pull something like that,” May said. “I don’t think a fatality or heavy [injury] happened based on the scene, because then you’d be able to see that someone got shot or it would be [more] intense. The officers were doing their jobs, but they weren’t like, ‘Oh my God, someone got shot.’”

London also learned that the shooter had left the white Honda — meaning that he was now on foot in her neighborhood.

“I thought it was a robbery but I didn’t know he had a gun,” May said. “I got really scared. I’m like, ‘He has a gun in our neighborhood. I’d better go home.’ I got paranoid. My adrenaline kicked in. I ran home and made myself a sandwich. I didn’t know that adrenaline makes you hungry.”

Both May and Murray are now even more conscious of their own safety than usual. May makes sure to lock her doors and close her garage every night.

“One thing I’m really paranoid about is letting my dogs in, because I let them out in the morning and it’s always dark outside, so I always turn the light on, I look, and then I let them out,” May said. “Be careful when you let your dogs in or out, because what if someone sneaks into your house?”

The police also warned Murray and her mom to try to stay off of Twitter, which can lead to these dangerous situations. Murray believes that due to the popularity of social media in modern times, people are too vulnerable on the app and often post personal information, such as where they are and when they are at home by themselves.

“I feel like there’s always a danger to that, especially since there’s people that know how to hack or know how to figure out where you are,” Murray said. “I feel like you should definitely watch what you post on social media [and] watch who you talk to on social media. My mom’s always told me, ‘Watch your surroundings. Not everyone is as kind as you may be, and not everyone is as genuine.’ Some people are actually bad people, and that’s how you get in bad situations like this.”

This story was originally published on Westwood Horizon on October 27, 2024.