TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WIAT) – What started as a stranger asking for a cigarette quickly turned into a matter of life and death for Tina Williams.

“I was scared to turn around because I thought he might shoot me in my back,” said Williams, a cashier at the Quick Stop in Duncanville, located just outside Tuscaloosa.

On Tuesday morning, Williams was taking her morning smoke break and enjoying a cup of coffee almost an hour into her shift at the Quick Stop in Duncanville. As she sat on a makeshift bench, a truck pulled up.

“He just didn’t look like that type of person,” Williams said.

The man was later identified as Christopher Steven Herring, although at the time, Williams did not know him.

“Whenever I went to hand him the cigarette, he grabbed my arm and that’s when he pulled the gun up and

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