A routine run to the Circle K for eggs took a horrifying turn for Michael Britton and his family Sunday, when they became first hand witnesses to a horrific shooting in Cape Coral.
Michael and his 13-year-old daughter Alexis are slowly recovering from the tragic encounter they witnessed.
"It was quick, like immediately, he just came in and 'BANG'! Turned to the left, cocked it, I think the guy went 'Woah, woah, woah,' and then BOOM shot him," Britton says. "I saw that shot. I saw the muzzle flash and everything."
Britton tells Four In Your Corner he and his daughter walked in to the store to buy eggs. "We made a left and then probably five feet before we got to the freezer, I heard a BANG!"
That bang was the gun shot Christopher Moran used to kill Circle K clerk Sean Strickland. "It was nuts. He just came in there. Shot. Turned to the left. Cocked it again. Shot again."
MORE: Cape Coral shooting spree victims identified
In a matter of seconds, Britton tells Four In Your Corner he grabbed his daughter and hid her to dial 911. "I was just hoping that I would not die," 13-year-old Alexis Britton said. "That he wouldn't come around the store and shoot each one of us one by one."
Alexis' mother, Stephanie Vitiert, was too distraught to go on camera, but tells Four In Your Corner she was in the car for about thirty seconds before hearing bullets blast. "I thought they were dead," Vitiert said.
Moments later Vitiert saw the shooter. "A man came out with a woman and a baby and a stroller and they were going back and forth," Vitiert said. "Kind of just talking, she was saying 'what are you doing, stop!'"
She says the shooter was hiding the gun under a plastic windshield visor, but at one point saw him waving the gun around before driving off with the woman and a baby.
Moments later, she ran inside the store. She takes a deep breath as she retells what was going through her mind. "When I went into the store I was preparing my mind to find them laying there," she said.
Instead she found puddles of blood and her family hiding and fearing the shooter would come back. "I didn't even wait for police. I was so scared," Vitiert said. "I just wanted to be safe and get to safety. We just called the police on the way home."
"That night when we came home. She slept in my bed and I held her extra extra tight and was just thanking God that she was alive."
Vitiert tells Four In Your Corner the family is considering therapy to help recover from this traumatic experience.
