Teresa Wiederin was working at the J.C. Penney store in the Westroads Mall in Omaha on Wednesday when she caught something out of the corner of her eye that didn’t look quite right.
“He went past the window of the mall,” she told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer on Thursday. “He just ran past the window. He caught my eye because of the motion. The only thing I really saw were his pants and this huge gun which was pointing down. He wasn’t shooting anybody.”
She had seen Robert Hawkins, a 19-year-old high-school dropout who had lost his home, his job flipping burgers and his girlfriend and was on his way to check out of life and take as many people as he could with him.
A short distance from the store where Wiederin worked, Hawkins strolled into the Van Maur department store, took an elevator to the mall’s third floor, and opened fire with an assault.
When the bullets stopped flying, nine people were dead, including the gunman.