Husband of South Carolina woman killed in Kroger parking lot recalls receiving ‘frantic’ call: ‘Alex got shot’

The husband of a South Carolina woman who was fatally shot in a Kroger parking lot earlier this month arrived at the crime scene around the same time as first responders after receiving a “frantic” call from a loved one who told him, “Alex got shot,” he said. 

Feb. 14 had started out as a normal day for the Borys family of three, Tyler Borys told Fox News Digital. 

“I said goodbye, I said, ‘I love you,’ and kissed her in the morning,” he said. “I kind of just expected it to be a Valentine’s Day on a Tuesday kind of a thing.” The Boryses have one child, a baby boy.

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That Tuesday was Alexandria Cress Borys’ first day back at work after her brother was shot and killed six days earlier, her husband recalled. Hours later, Borys was sent home early after her coworkers could tell she “needed some time.”

“So she picked up her sister-in-law and her kids. They just went to the Kroger and went shopping to, I guess get all of our stuff for dinner,” he said. “That’s kind of when everything happened.” 

Borys, 26, her brother’s significant other and the woman’s two children, ages 2 months old and 3 years old, went to the Kroger supermarket on Saint Andrews Road. They had finished shopping and were in the parking lot of the store when the day took a turn for the worse.

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Tyler Borys had just picked up his son from daycare when his phone rang, he said.

“Her sister-in-law had called me and was just as frantic as when she called the week prior, when Alex’s brother died,” Borys recalled. “It was the same franticness … She said that, ‘Alex got shot,’ and just kind of kept repeating that.” 

Not far from the supermarket, Borys said he followed a police cruiser as it was responding to the scene.

“I got there before the crime scene people came. Before they had even blocked the scene,” he said. “I just pulled up right next to her car.” 

Borys was gunned down around 4 p.m. on Feb. 14 after she and the alleged shooter, a stranger named Christina Harrison, were arguing, police have said. 

The group had just finished shopping and Borys’ sister-in-law was loading the children into the car when Borys ran into an adjacent liquor store, Tyler Borys said. 

He noted that certain details remained unclear, and he had not yet received a copy of the police report. 

“There was some altercation between the two of them, whether it happened from inside of the liquor store or if it came from something in the parking lot. But there was some arguing and then the lady almost hit Alex. Then they kept yelling and … I know Alex, there wasn’t anything that was like self-defense – the woman didn’t get like, struck or assaulted or anything like that.” 

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By that point, Borys had returned to the vehicle where her sister-in-law was seated in the front and the children were in their car seats.

“Alex was throwing the bags back into the car and said, ‘Hold on a minute,’” he said. “Her sister-in-law had kind of turned around and saw that they were shouting. And as Alex was turning back, drops.” 

Borys said his wife’s autopsy report showed she suffered a bullet wound with a “back lower left skull entry.”

“She was killed immediately,” he said. 

Earlier this week, Irmo Police Chief Bobby Dale told Fox News Digital Borys and Harrison were arguing in the parking lot “over who had the right-of-way.”

“According to witnesses, the two exchanged some words and that’s around the time Borys spit at Harrison,” Dale wrote in an email. “Borys turned away and was simultaneously shot by Harrison.”

Borys could not be saved and was pronounced dead at the scene. 

Police said Harrison fled the area in her white Ford vehicle but turned herself in to authorities around 5:30 p.m. that day.  

Harrison, 23, was charged with murder, unlawfully carrying a pistol and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. She has no known criminal history, Dale said.

Her attorney, Derrick Mobley, did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

A Kroger spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the store “provided video to help the Irmo Police Department in their investigation.”

“This was a senseless tragedy,” the spokesperson said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and loved ones of the victim.”

Borys said his wife had recently enrolled in nursing school and worked as a local cosmetologist.

He said his wife “just met a lot of good people and she always kind of kept them close.” 

“She was just a person that kind of checked in on you,” he said, something that had “been made a lot more apparent to me.” 

He added: “She just spread a lot of love. And none of this was right.” 

In a GoFundMe page created in her honor, Tyler described his wife as “a beautiful woman, wonderful mother, compassionate wife, trusting friend, and so so much more.”

He added: “Alexandria was truly taken too soon.”