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SEMO student shot, killed in St. Louis
CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Southeast Missouri State University sophomore Bobby Christman has died after wounds sustained from a gunshot just after midnight Sunday.
Christman, 19, was in the passenger seat of a parked car on the 700 block of North 15th Street in St. Louis with a 17-year-old boy and a 19-year-old woman when an unknown suspect opened the rear driver's-side door, displayed a firearm, and demanded the woman's purse.
According to previous reporting by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the suspect opened the rear driver's-side door of the parked car and tried to grab the woman's purse. According to police, the woman resisted and Christman said something to the gunman, who then fired the shot that struck Christman, police said witnesses told them. The gunman jumped back in his vehicle and fled.
The other two people in the vehicle were uninjured.
Christman was in the Missouri Zeta chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, and enjoyed rugby, wrestling and flaming hot Cheetos.
The Cheetos were the first thing fraternity brother Alex Meury said about Christman, "they were his go to food for everything.
"[He was] just a happy-go-lucky kid who didn't worry about the future, just always lived in the moment."
Meury and Christman met last year during recruitment, and after hearing about their mutual love of wrestling they began the wrestling club on campus. Meury acts as president for the club and said that although Christman wasn't on the board he was one of the founders.
"Whenever me and him wrestled I always got the upper hand because I have wrestled for so long, but he stopped me at practice one night and just overpowered me with his strength," Meury said. "The guy had a grit and fire about him that people could see by just looking at him. You got the sense that this kid was a tough cookie."
Meury said as one of the oldest members in his fraternity Christman looked up to him as a brother, and would often come to him for advice. They connected on many levels through wrestling and the different struggles they underwent in school.
"Bobby was the kind of guy who acted first and would ask questions later. I think that's what compelled him to act they way he did last night during the armed robbery," Meury said.
According to the executive director of communications and marketing at Southeast, Jeff Harmon, Southeast hasn't scheduled any vigils yet for Christman.
"This is a tragic loss of life and we deeply mourn the death of Robert. We ask that everyone keep his family in their thoughts and prayers," Harmon said.