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Jutte Gallegos Burton was a short-haired, round woman who painted her eyebrows on and didn’t worry too much about fashion.
Friends of the 7-Eleven clerk said she had a high-pitched cackle and liked to call people “honey.”
She told her friends that “Daddy” – the nickname she gave God – would protect her while she was working at night.
But the day before she was gunned down at the Aurora store where she worked behind the counter, she asked a friend to pray for her.
“She said, ‘I don’t know what it is, I don’t feel good,”‘ said Tommy Antonopoulos, a real estate agent and friend.
Gallegos Burton, 62, was alone in the store on East Sixth Avenue and Havana Street when she was killed at 3:08 a.m. Sunday.
Antonopoulos worried about her. More than once before, he had driven by the store to check on her.
There is conflicting research about whether it is safer for convenience-store employees to work with others or alone in the middle of the night.
Margaret Chabris, a spokeswoman for 7-Eleven, says Gallegos Burton, a nine-year employee, requested the 11 p.m.-7 a.m. shift. In the past three years, there had not been a violent incident at the Aurora store, she said.
Chabris said company research – backed up by a 1999 study by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health – shows that having more than one clerk in a store can increase the homicide rate.
However, a report issued a year earlier by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said having more than one clerk increases safety in high-crime areas.
In Florida, convenience stores are required between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. to have more than one clerk on duty, shut the store down or put up bulletproof glass at the counter if a violent incident has occurred at the business. Colorado has no such law.
Sociologist Rosemary Erickson, who has conducted research for 7-Eleven on worker safety, said that in Florida there has been a decrease in robberies overall in the years since the two-clerk rule was implemented, but that homicides increased in convenience stores.
In Sunday’s shooting, robbery has not been ruled out as a motive even though it does not appear money was taken, police said. No arrests have been made.
Gallegos Burton tried to get away from a man who reached over the counter with a shotgun and fired, according to Aurora police and a surveillance video. The clerk died at a hospital.
Gallegos Burton knew how to defend herself, her friends say, and didn’t take any flak from people who did not treat her with respect in the store. But at the same time, she was not the kind of clerk who would have fought someone who wanted to steal money or merchandise.
“Whatever happened, it happened by surprise,” Antonopoulos said.
Gallegos Burton grew up an only child on a farm in Strasburg. Friends said she was estranged from her son, who may be in the military.
Chabris said 7-Eleven will pay for Gallegos Burton’s funeral expenses. The company also hired a detective to find her son and next of kin, Chabris said.
At the store where she worked, fellow employees left a candle burning and roses behind the cash register.
“It was a shock, but we are doing OK now,” said Syed Mukhtar, a field consultant for 7-Eleven. “She was a very loving, nice lady. The employees brought flowers as a symbol of respect.”
Gallegos Burton was the “spirit” of the condominium complex in Denver where she lived, said Antonopoulos and the building’s developer, Jim Jones.
When she moved in, she carried her belongings in a bunch of a bags and owned only a bed. The men gave her furniture that people moving out didn’t want anymore. They also gave her a TV, which she rarely used.
“She was a sweetheart. I don’t know why someone would shoot her in the back,” Antonopoulos said. “You can’t do that to a lady like that.”
