Waffle House shooting survivors share story; witness faked death to stay alive

JACKSON, Tenn. — It was a story that grabbed national attention — four people killed at a Waffle House in Tennessee. Although weeks have passed, the effects are everlasting.

WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News spoke with three women who told their story first hand, describing how a normal weekend visiting family ended with a 911 call for help.

Kayla Shaw, Alexis Peeples and Chelsey Owens, three people who survived the deadly Waffle House shooting, explained what happened during the early morning hours of April 22.

“I was in the front seat,” Owens said. “I was just sitting there, and I was like, ‘Lexis, he is shooting up the Waffle House,’ like, ‘get down, get down.'”

Owens and Peeples saw the shooter enter the Waffle House. Shaw was already inside picking up their order when the first gunshot hit the glass.

“Broke along my face, and I fell on my right side and I was just thinking, like, ‘What’s going on?'” Shaw said.

Although the women were in a state of shock, Owens and Peeples managed to make the initial 911 call for help.

“It was like, ‘Kayla’s in the inside.’ Once we start seeing him going in the inside, we was like, ‘Kayla’s in the inside,’ like, we have to do something,” Peeples said.

Shaw, facing possible death, did one thing that kept her alive to tell this story.

“I’m scared. I don’t want to die, and I’m just like, play dead,” Shaw said. “That’s the only thing I could possibly think of that could save my life.”

While lying on the floor, Shaw said she looked up and saw the shooter naked. “That’s all that I seen of the shooter. Not his face, not anything else, but his genitals,” Shaw said.

In an attempt to get away, Shaw explained how she passed multiple dead and injured people on her way out the door, tripping over one man’s body.

“He was dead. I fell in his puddle of blood in front of his girlfriend, who had majority of her leg blown off,” Shaw said.

All three survived, later reuniting with James Shaw Jr., also known as the “Waffle House Hero.”

“So thankful for James because you just never know what else could have happened,” Peeples said.

The ladies say dealing with the experience has been traumatic, but they want to encourage everyone to be aware and always watch your surroundings.

“Anytime I’m in a building now, I always try to find a way out or a way to hide, just in case something do happen,” Owens said.

Although the women are still on edge when entering certain places, they say healing comes one day at a time.