Sheriff Hubert Peterkin told ABC11 Monday that three people came up to the All American Mattress and Furniture store, located at 9734 Aberdeen Road, just after 8:30 p.m. - as the owner was locking up for the night.
Peterkin said they were armed with a rifle and brass knuckles and intended to rob the business. All three were masked, and one beat business owner Alexander Roland with the brass knuckles - before he was able to disarm the suspect with the rifle and shoot him.
Peterkin identified the dead suspect as 16-year-old David Ryan Frame of Raeford, a junior at Flora MacDonald Academy in Red Springs.
Peterkin told ABC11 Monday that Roland could have been killed and was protecting himself, but feels terrible for shooting and killing Frame.
"All of this happened in a matter of seconds. No time to identify who you are. No time to identify what you are. It was a life or death situation because of money," said Sheriff Peterkin.
After the shooting, the remaining suspects ran to a waiting vehicle and left.
Peterkin said two of the suspects, 27-year-old Amie Lynette Ross, of 128 Park Place Mobile Home Park in Raeford, and 21-year-old Lewis Vega, of 308 Providence Way in Aberdeen, turned themselves in Monday.
They're charged with robbery with a dangerous weapon, felony breaking and entering, conspiracy to commit armed robbery and aid and abet of an armed robbery
Peterkin said more arrests are expected.
Vega used to work at the store, according to Peterkin. Speaking with ABC11 Monday, Frame's parents said they recognized him as someone their son knew through Vega's girlfriend.
"I don't blame the store owner for feeling threatened because I would have felt threatened, too, of people came in trying to rob, but he was not there willingly. He was coerced," said Tonya Frame of her son.
Mrs. Frame said she and her husband were stuck in the Northeast Friday by the snowstorm and learned about what happened by phone.
She said their 13-year-old daughter was home when the group came to get David and was threatened by the others. She said she thinks David went with them to protect her. He was the third of four children.
"They did something to him. They drugged him. I don't know. They coerced him. They threatened him. They threatened my family, but it was them, not him," said Mrs. Frame.
Frame's father Michael Frame said David would bring troubled kids by the house and ask his parents to help them. Prior to the robbery, he said the most trouble David got in was for not having his homework in on time once.
Tonya Frame said she's struggling to understand how it could have happened.
"I found a mouse in my house," she said through tears. "He's a 16-year-old boy and he couldn't even kill the mouse. He picked it up and carried it across the street and let it go. He didn't even kill bugs. What kind of boy doesn't kill bugs? He would never hurt somebody on purpose."
A Facebook page has been set up to remember Frame.
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