Inset: Trey Waters (Maricopa County Sheriff's Office). Background: Surveillance footage showing Trey Waters opening fire on an Arizona store clerk (AZ Family).
An Arizona man is headed to prison for decades after going on a violent rampage that included shooting a convenience store clerk over and over as she ran for her life, including blasting her as she lay wounded on the floor.
Trey Waters, 34, has been sentenced to 65 years in prison after a jury convicted him of a string of armed robberies and violent attacks in Phoenix, according to a press release sent out Tuesday by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.
The shooting of the Minute Mart clerk who tried to flee unfolded after Waters pulled his gun on the woman while pretending to buy peanuts. Waters also shot a man in the neck and duct-taped a woman during a hotel robbery, in addition to robbing and beating a food vendor.
The attacks happened between April 12 and May 9, 2021. The victims all survived.
In the clerk shooting, surveillance video showed Waters walking up to the counter with a bag of peanuts and handing the clerk a dollar. "When the clerk opened the register, Waters threw a brown bag onto the counter, pulled out a gun, and racked the slide," the attorney's office says in its press release.
"He shot at the clerk twice as she tried to back away," the release recounts. "As Waters ran out the door, he shot at the clerk a third time as she was lying on the floor. The clerk suffered multiple serious injuries from the gunshots."
Phoenix police arrested Waters a day later after detectives used the surveillance video, along with victim and witness statements, to identify him.
"Phoenix Police's Special Assignment Unit caught him just as he was about to enter another convenience store with the same gun used in the previous shootings," the attorney's office says.
Before the clerk shooting, Waters "forced his way into a hotel room" near 51st Avenue and Interstate 10, where he shot a man in the neck, bound a woman's hands together with duct tape, and then "took off with their money," according to the attorney's office. He robbed and beat a food vendor with a gun about two weeks later and also threatened two women with the firearm.
A Maricopa County jury returned a guilty verdict on one count of first-degree burglary, three counts of armed robbery, eight counts of aggravated assault, one count of kidnapping, one count of attempted armed robbery, and one count of attempt to commit second-degree murder.
"A guilty verdict on every count, followed by a sentence of this length, sends an unmistakable message that anyone who terrorizes innocent people with a gun will be held accountable," said Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell in a statement on Tuesday. "This conviction was truly a team effort by MCAO prosecutors, Phoenix Police who stopped Waters before he could hurt anyone else, the brave witnesses who testified in court, and one of Waters' own family members who helped identify him."