Courtesy photo/Volusia County Sheriff's Office. Keith Allen Higginbotham, 29, of Edgewater, was the would-be robber shot to death Saturday inside the Medicine Shoppe pharmacy by a plainclothes security guard.
NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Keith Allen Higginbotham, 29, of Edgewater, has been identified as the would-be robber shot and killed Saturday morning by a plainclothes security guard at the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy on North Dixie Freeway after throwing a backpack at the pharmacist and ordering him to fill it with pain-killer medicine.
The man who took lethal action was Kenneth Smith, 63, a retired police captain with the New Smyrna Beach police and retired as well as a Volusia County deputy.
According to a New Smyrna Beach police report, Higginbotham barrelled through the front door and threw the backpack at pharmacy owner Jack Bosker, while pointing a hangun at him and then at Smith while screaming in part: Give me the (expletive deleted) Roxy."
The drug is a street name for Roxicodone, a derivative of the pain-killer Oxycodone, which is highly addictive when not taken as prescribed by a medical doctor.
Smith then pulled out his own gun and opened fire on Higginbotham, shooting him in the chest and leg.
The armed gunman was pronounced dead at the scene when New Smyrna Beach arrived at 10:17 a.m., less than two minutes after receiving a 9-1-1 call from the pharmacy. Police estimate the shooting occurred at 10:15 a.m.
Police are expected to release the surveillance tape from the pharmacy's camera. An autopsy was performed on Higginbotham this morning, with the cause of death ruled a homicide by a firearm. No arrests are expected to be made since police are treating it as a justifiable homicide.
Higginbotham was facing a burglary charge in the 7th judicial circuit when he was killed.