One of the People Killed in the Arkansas Grocery Store Killing Was a New Mom Who Loved Her Daughter

Callie Weems was loving being a mom in the months before she was shot and killed at an Arkansas grocery store.

Our mother, Helen Browning, 53, talked about her daughter Ivy, who is now 10 months old, in a phone chat on Sunday. She said that her daughter was always a source of fun and wonder. Four people were killed and eleven were hurt in the shooting at the Mad Butcher store in Fordyce, Arkansas, on Friday, including the accused gunman. Weems, 23, was one of the injured. A little over an hour ago, Weems was amazed that her daughter had let her sleep in until 9 a.m.

It was a text message that said, “I bet you feel like a new mom.”

It was the last thing they talked about before Travis Eugene Posey, 44, of New Edinburg opened fire at the store. Police say he hit several cars with bullets while terrified witnesses dove and scrambled for cover. Weems, a nurse, died while helping someone who had been shot, Arkansas State Police Director Mike Hagar said on Sunday.

He told reporters, “Instead of running out of the store, she stopped to help. It was one of the most selfless things I’ve ever seen.”

State police say that 15 people were shot on Friday. Twelve of them were individuals, two were police officers, and Posey was one of them.

At least three shootings have happened at U.S. food stores in the past three years. Ten Black people were killed by a white nationalist at a Buffalo grocery store in 2022. A little more than a year before that, 10 people were shot and killed at a Boulder, Colorado, grocery.

Sunday, police said they still didn’t know why Posey did what he did, but he didn’t seem to know any of the victims personally.

Authorities say he had a 12-gauge shotgun, a pistol, and a bandolier with a lot of extra shotgun rounds on it. He used the shotgun to fire most, if not all, of the rounds. He started shooting at people in the parking lot before going inside the store and “indiscriminately” hit customers and workers, Hagar said.

Within minutes, Fordyce police and Dallas County sheriff’s deputies arrived. Posey came out of the store and fired at them, but they shot him and arrested him.

For Browning, the disaster was made worse by her relationship with Roy Sturgis, 50, who was also shot and killed. She said Sturgis was like a member of her extended family. He worked as a logger and loved his daughter very much.

She said, “Roy was as country as cornbread.” “His life was easy.” “He was a simple person.”

Shirley Taylor, 62, and Ellen Shrum, 81, were named as the other people who died.

A daughter of Taylor told KTHV in Little Rock, Arkansas, that she knitted and took care of her diabetic husband.

Atchley said, “She was our family rock.”

Roderick Rogers, a member of the city council, said Sunday that the shooting had left the 3,200 people who live in Fordyce, which is 65 miles (104 kilometers) south of Little Rock, in shock.

On Friday, people at the store asked him to help them, so he went there.

“The shooter was shooting “like crazy” in the parking lot, Rogers said. “It was like a war zone.”

He said that people in the close-knit community were worried about the victims who were still in the hospital and even about the chance of another killing.

He said, “A lot of people are scared.” “They need to feel safe now.”

Hagar said that the fact that the police officers and deputies who arrived at the scene knew both the shooter and the victims made the attack even more painful and personal.

Police say the people hurt are between the ages of 20 and 65. Five were still in the hospital, and one of them was a woman who was in serious condition.

In the Ouachita County Detention Center, Posey was being held by police. They said he would be charged with four counts of capital murder.

On Sunday, a spokesman for the state police said they thought Posey had a lawyer, but they didn’t know the name of the person.

She told Posey that she and her youngest sister went to school together and that she never would have thought he would do something so cruel.

She’s going to raise Ivy now.

She told her, “She will know that her mom loved her.” She was the sunshine in her mom’s eyes.