Bruce Florence's family was his motivation for working hard.
For more than a decade, he was a regular sight at the Walmart in Westworth Village, greeting customers, ringing up purchases and stocking merchandise, his wife, Cathey Florence, said.
He also frequently worked a second job to further provide for her and their 14-year-old daughter, Kelsey Bernae Florence.
"He didn't want his daughter to go without anything," Florence said. "Life was about her. He wanted her to go to college. He wanted her to be somebody."
But on June 14, Bruce Florence was knocked to the ground when he tried to stop a man who was trying to walk out without paying for a $348 TV. Florence was hospitalized with a head injury until he died on Father's Day.
"Bruce was a good man who left behind a loving family and good friends," said Darrell Bartell, a Walmart co-worker. "He didn't die defending his country or saving someone's life. He died because a coward wanted a television set."
William Alan Kennedy, 37, of Fort Worth, was already in the Tarrant County Jail, charged with aggravated robbery in the Westworth Village case. He is a suspect in six similar Fort Worth thefts, police have said.
The Tarrant Count medical examiner's office has not yet ruled on the cause and manner of Florence's death. If it is ruled a homicide, Westworth Village police say, it will be up to the Tarrant County district attorney's office whether new charges are filed against Kennedy.
"If the police present us with additional facts, then we will consider additional charges at that time," Assistant District Attorney Kevin Rousseau said Tuesday.
Read more of this story at Star-Telegram.com
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