Masked gunman robs East Calais store, terrifying clerk
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Darci Herdling holds her 4-month-old daughter Cheyenne on Friday morning after being robbed at gunpoint at the East Calais General Store on Thursday night. Jeb Wallace-Brodeur/Times Argus |
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By Susan Allen Times Argus Editor - Published: November 22, 2008
A masked man walked into the East Calais General Store at around 7:20 p.m. on Thursday, pointed a gun at the clerk and demanded the money in the store's register. He then left the store with an estimated $1,400 after cutting the phone cord, switching off the outside lights, and kicking the car seat holding the clerk's 4-month-old daughter.
"I had my little girl with me … I thought what's going to happen to her?" recounted the shaken clerk, Darci Herdling, on Friday afternoon. "I did what he said. I thought if I just did what he said he wouldn't hurt us. I gave him all the money."
Instead, Herdling said, the gunman ordered her into the back of the store, refusing to let her take baby Cheyenne Rose with her.
"He said, 'I swear to f#*&ing God I'll kill you both,'" Herdling said, adding that she immediately began following his instructions to move to the back of the store.
"I thought he was leaving and I turned around to come get my baby. He came at me and got in between me and her, pointed the gun at her head, pointed it at mine, pointed it at her," Herdling said. "Then he kicked her across the deli floor."
Cheyenne Rose was in a car seat behind the counter, but wasn't strapped into the seat. Herdling said the baby suffered a cut on her head, and was taken to the Central Vermont Medical Center emergency room, where she was given a CT scan and eventually released.
"I was shaking so bad and crying. It was so hard. I don't even now how to describe … in a minute's time all the emotions that run through your head," she said of the robbery. "Do I run to her and grab her, or do I just do what he says?"
Herdling said she lives upstairs over the store in an apartment, so she grabbed Cheyenne Rose and ran to call police.
She said her mother owns the store, and has always instructed the employees to hand over the money in the event of a robbery. In fact, she said her mother reminded employees of those instructions when a store in Woodbury was robbed by a man with an ax earlier this year,.
"She's always told us from the beginning the number one thing is our safety," Herdling said. "She sat us down and said, 'Don't ever feel like you are responsible for the money, do what they say.' That was nice that I didn't have a fear that I had to protect the money."
Herdling said she felt the robber was experienced because he asked for "big bills" from the register, refusing to take credit card receipts that were mixed in, and he cut the phone cord and lights as he left.
She said she was especially angry that he harmed her baby.
"He asked for the money, I gave it to him. I did exactly what he said," she said. "He had the money, there was no reason to kick her. That's the ultimate level of cruelty.
"I thought she was going to die, especially once he kicked her," Herdling said. "I thought he was going to kill her."
A local resident who heard about the robbery stopped by Friday with three security cameras for the store to install – two that can film at outside at night, and one for inside with a motion detector. Herdling said those would be functional very shortly.
Still, she said, she remains frightened from the experience.
"I'm petrified. I'm sure it will get better over time, but I keep spacing out and thinking about it," she said Friday. She said a regular customer came in Friday morning and tapped her on the shoulder and Herdling jumped and flailed out at the woman.
"I tried to go to sleep last night and every time I closed my eyes I saw somebody with a gun," she said, noting that she worries every man who walks through the door is either that specific robber or someone else who might pull a gun. "It's really unfortunate for our customers and our community, too. We're all looking like … is that him?"
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