JACKSON, Miss. - A Diebold service technician became one of the city's first homicides of 2004 on Jan. 1.
According to a WLBT report, Frank Hedgpeth was making a service call to a Bancorp South ATM when he was surprised by a black male while waiting for a customer to finish a transaction. The unidentified man removed Hedgpeth from the vehicle and reportedly shot him once in the head.
Rita Wilkerson, a neighborhood resident, was across the street shopping when Hedgpeth was shot. "I looked across the street and saw a body laying in the parking lot," she said.
During the attack, Hedgpeth hit a speed dial button on his phone. When his sister in Hattiesburg answered, she called Hedgpeth's co-worker, Jerry Kirk.
"She said she had a call from him and there were a bunch of other people's voices in the background. It was not Frankie's voice and it alarmed her because that was Frankie's cell phone," Kirk said.
Lynn Eberhart of Goss Security, who had been working with Hedgpeth for more than a year. and had provided security on a service call earlier the same morning, said that Hedgpeth did not request security for the Bancorp South location.
Kirk said, "It was early in the morning...New Years Day...feeling like a lot of people would be in sleeping or whatever...and I guess he figured he'd run in and run out."
Police are looking for two black males in Hedgpeth's midnight blue Ford Focus, according to the WLBT report. Police hope to get a better description of the suspects from one of the ATM surveillance cameras.
