A family friend testified Monday afternoon that Carey Heidt described a scene in Philip and Linda Heidt’s home where guns were drawn days before the Carey and Philip were shot and killed.

 

“(Carey said) me and daddy were in the den, and Craig comes in with a gun, and told me he’s gonna shoot me,” Loretta Brower testified to the jury in Craig Heidt’s double murder trial.

 

Brower, a close family friend of Carey and Robin Heidt, said that Carey told her that right after the fight at the Heidt home, Philip Heidt told Craig Heidt that “Son, if you don’t quit drinking (and doing) drugs and messing around with Robin, I’ll cut you out of the will.”

 

Brower had had close contact with Carey and Robin Heidt since before the birth of their second child and said that Carey described her as “second mother to him.” 

 

Monday was the fourth day of testimony in the double murder trial of Philip and Carey Heidt and the shooting of Linda Heidt against Craig Heidt.

 

“I knew just about everything,” Brower said.

 

She recalled Robin Heidt telling her that she was leaving and moving to Charleston, S.C., and to call Carey Heidt in early summer 2008. He told her Robin was “extremely angry and wanted out.”  Brower said that one of the last times Robin Heidt came to talk with her that she was

“fidgety,” and that it was like she had “a different personality I hadn’t seen.”

 

Brower said Carey confided to her his suspicions of Craig Heidt and his wife having an affair. 

 

“I don’t know what else to do,” she said Carey told her. “… Go home and tell her you love her and you want to make it right,” Brower said she advised him.

 

Prior to the shootings that took place Aug. 25, 2008, Brower said that she advised Carey Heidt to stay with his mother and father, which she said brought Carey Heidt to tell her about the confrontation between himself, his father and his brother Craig at the Heidt home on Springfield-Egypt Road. She said she offered to let him stay at her home but he did not want to for fear of involving her further.

 

For the complete story, see Tuesday's edition of the Effingham Herald.