SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — A convicted felon is behind bars tonight, charged with a horrific crime that shocked the Spotsylvania community and had convenience store workers on edge for more than a year.
Detectives say 33-year-old Derek Sprouse of Spotsylvania is the man who shot store clerk Kelly Wood twice in the head.
Amazingly, Wood survived her injuries.
Spotyslvania County Sheriff Roger Harris says this senseless crime haunted the community.
“People were very concerned with this heinous crime and they wanted results,” Harris said.
Surveillance video of the incident was hard to look at and rattled the region. It showed a man walking into the Fas Mart on Brock Road requesting an item.
When Wood turns to get it, the man opens fires, shooting Wood in the head twice before running off the with the store’s ephedrine cabinet.
“There has not been a day that my staff and I have not discussed this case,” says Harris.
The Sheriff says detectives investigated more than 100 tips with the FBI and ATF over the past 14 months eventually leading them to Sprouse.
Sprouse is no stranger to law enforcement.
He is has been in jail in North Carolina since March of this year. He’s accused of a February armed robbery at a convenience store in Kings Mountain, NC.
In 2013, he plead guilty to felony child neglect charges in Spotsylvania.
As for Wood, it’s been an uphill battle.
“She is in constant pain on a daily basis — this young lady has suffered a tremendous loss here. She is actually recovering a lot better that we originally hoped,” says the Sheriff.
He says Wood still needs several more surgeries to repair her jaw from the gunshot wounds.
Sprouse will be extradited to Virginia to face several charges: Robbery of a business with use of a gun, malicious wounding, use of a firearm in commission of a felony robbery, use of a firearm in the commission of malicious wounding, use of a firearm by the convicted felon, show cause probation violation to revoke a suspended two-year six-month sentence for felony child abuse.
A date for extradition has not been set yet.
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