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GREENSBORO - Steven and Crystal Carter's humanity overcame their terror Monday morning.

It was in those first chaotic moments after Monday's armed robbery and shooting of a Brinks Security employee at the Friendly Center Old Navy store that the Carters' instinct for good took hold.

Crystal Carter held the dying guard's hand while her husband pressed an Old Navy garment to the bullet wound in the man's forehead, trying to stanch the bleeding.

"We thought he was dead," Steven Carter said Monday. But then Crystal Carter took the man's pulse.

It was racing. He was alive.

The Carters of Reidsville were among about 12 shoppers inside the Old Navy store at 10 a.m. Monday when police say a man armed with a handgun shot the security employee and stole bags of money he had just picked up from the store.

The shooter was inside the store before the robbery, waiting for the armored car to arrive, Police Chief Tim Bellamy said at a news conference Monday.

Shoppers said they heard two gunshots, then saw the shooter, a man wearing a woman's shoulder-length wig and hospital scrubs, run toward the back of the store.

Steven Carter, 33 said he heard a sound like a balloon popping and the couple ducked behind a clothing display. He heard a second "pop" then saw the man, holding the gun, walking to where he and his wife had taken shelter.

After hearing the shots, Stephanie Newton, 42, of Stokesdale, called 911 from behind a rack of girls' clothes, whispering her report to the operator.

"We weren't sure what had happened," Newton said. "It was horrible."

Her son, Cody Harker, 18, a student at Duke University, found blankets to help Steven Carter slow the security guard's bleeding.

"I was terrified," Steven Carter said. "When I was in the store, I was terrified. When they told me he (the gunman) took off, I was just feeling for this guy (the security guard)."

Crystal Carter gripped the security guard's hand during the wait for paramedics to arrive.

"I couldn't imagine it being me laying there by myself," she said. "I wouldn't want it to be my family and no one there to help him. I couldn't imagine it being my family, my child."

The security guard died later Monday at Moses Cone Hospital. Police declined to release his name before notifying family members.

"We both already pretty much knew he was going to die, but we were still hopeful and praying that he would be OK," Steven Carter said. "We tried to do everything we could to save him. That was somebody's family."

Stephanie Ponder, 31, had left the Old Navy with her 3-month-old son moments before the shooting.

"It's crazy," Ponder said. "You don't think of that kind of thing happening. It makes you a lot more cautious."

Police spokeswoman Lt. Hope Newkirk said the police department was planning to increase patrols at Friendly Center to help holiday shoppers feel more secure there.

But Newkirk said this event should not make shoppers afraid of being targeted in such an attack because Monday's homicide was part of a prearranged robbery.

"This is not something that typically happens at Friendly Center," Newkirk said. "It just seems very well orchestrated."

Police described the shooter as a black man with a dark complexion, 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall and wearing a shoulder-length, dark red wig.

He had on teal pants and a white shirt, similar to those worn by hospital employees, with a print design on the shirt and a long-sleeved white T-shirt underneath. The shooter left the area in an unknown direction in a black car that might have had a spoiler on the trunk.

The shooter took several bags from the security guard, but police don't know how much money, if any, he left with, Newkirk said.

The shooter remained at large Monday night.

No store employees or customers were injured in the shooting. A second Brinks employee with the victim was uninjured.

Friendly Center, located at 600 Green Valley Road, did not close after the shooting, but police blocked off the parking lot in front of the shopping center between Rite Aid and Barnes & Noble.

Staff writers John Newsom and staff writer Gerald Witt contributed to this report.

Contact Sonja Elmquist at 373-7090 or sonja. elmquist@news-record.com

Contact Lanita Withers at 373-7071 or lanita.withers@news-record.com