A man who shot a St. Peters woman in the face during a botched purse robbery outside a Schnucks grocery store has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Tyrone Miller pleaded guilty to the March 2023 attack, which left the victim with a bullet and shrapnel still lodged in her head.
According to FOX 2, Miller shot the woman, now 55, in the face after she resisted his attempt to grab her purse while she and her husband were loading groceries into their trunk. Prosecutor Joe McCulloch said Miller opened fire when the woman would not let go. The attack happened on March 3, 2023, at the Schnucks store near Highway 94 and Jungermann Road in St. Peters, a location also described as 48 Plaza 94 by firstalert4.com, which reported that the bullet entered through her ear and exited her jaw.
A Purse Grab That Turned Into Gunfire
McCulloch said Miller was stealing to buy drugs, per the station's report. The plea deal secures an immediate conviction without the possibility of future appeals, and Miller waived his right to appeal as part of the agreement. McCulloch noted that the sentence he received was five years less than what he likely would have faced had the case gone to trial.
In court, Miller apologized to the victim, his mother and his young daughter, saying he took full responsibility for his bad choices, the outlet reported. The woman told the court the shooting changed her daily life and that of people close to her — some family and friends now avoid grocery stores after dark, she said, or refuse to go out at night alone or unarmed. She continues to live with both physical and emotional trauma from the attack, according to the same account.
Tracked Through a Rental Car and a Motel Across the River
Miller evaded law enforcement for days after the shooting, and investigators say he reportedly committed additional thefts in suburban shopping centers during that stretch. Authorities tracked him using license plate readers that identified a rental vehicle tied to his movements — court records cited by FOX 2 described the vehicle as a Honda CR-V rented from an Avis dealer in St. Peters. That reporting also said Miller may have been linked to a theft outside a Walmart in the Chesterfield Valley, though that connection was described only as a suspicion, not a confirmed finding.
Investigators eventually traced Miller's base of operations to an extended-stay motel in O'Fallon, Illinois, across the river from St. Peters. McCulloch said Miller had committed crimes elsewhere before he was ultimately caught by a municipality in St. Louis County. On March 7, 2023, Sgt. Melissa Doss of the St. Peters Police Department confirmed that Miller, then 24, had been charged with first-degree assault, armed criminal action and first-degree attempted robbery, per firstalert4.com.
Other Cases Tied to the Same Days
Separately, stltoday.com reported that Miller was suspected in similar purse snatchings around the same period, though he had not been charged in those other cases at the time of that reporting. Investigators also linked the St. Peters shooting to a robbery at a Dierbergs in Shrewsbury that same day, March 3, 2023, using surveillance footage and Flock camera data from the Dierbergs parking lot, according to Times Newspapers. The Shrewsbury victim was described as an 81-year-old Dierbergs customer.
