Spring Hill smoke shop owner glad to be alive after shooting

SPRING HILL (FOX 13) - In Hernando County, a store owner is recovering after his Spring Hill business was shot up by a man on a mission to kill.

Deputies say it was the suspect’s third shooting in a violent rampage that spread across Hernando and Pasco counties.

The store owner’s wife says her husband did what he had to do to survive.

The shooter was uncontrollable. Deputies were on his tail but it was the owner of the smoke shop, Richard Webb, put an end to it.

Investigators say the suspect shot him but he shot back and lived to see his family again.

Webb’s wife is still shaken from a sleepless night.

“We’re all kind of just in shock right now which is the only reason why i can’t even manage to formulate sentences,” Corinne Webb said.

According to the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office, Webb was in his smoke shop along US 19 when 59-year-old Theodore Parker tried to rob the store, firing shots toward its owner.

“He was shot in the chest and it exited out the other side and went through his arm,” Corinne explained.

But Webb was determined to survive. He grabbed a gun inside his store and shot back, fatally wounding the man who deputies say was on a vicious crime spree.

Just before Parker came into the smoke shop, deputies say he shot and killed a man just a few blocks away from the store. Before that, he shot a woman in Pasco County.

His victims and their families are distressed by the day’s alarming events.

Corinne Webb is just grateful her husband is okay.

“Such a good person, you know? I know everybody says that… but he is, he is amazing. He’s a great dad. He’s a great husband,” she said, smiling. “It doesn’t surprise me he acted the way he did, not one bit.”

Determined to see his family again, Webb defended his life with all his might.

The Hernando County Sheriff’s Office says this is still an open investigation. They say the shooting at the smoke shop was random but the previous two shootings were targeted.

The suspect reportedly knew the man he killed and the woman he injured.