SOUTH BEACH SECURITY GUARD
A guard, a druggie, a gun — a South Beach tragedy
Ernest ”Ricky” Heape, 29, was a troubled drug user before he killed a South Beach security guard and then himself, police said.
John Ruiz was a burly father of two, a security guard who once helped deliver a baby on the floor of a Wal-Mart.
Ernest ”Ricky” Heape was a violent fugitive whose talent for drawing was overwhelmed by a dysfunctional family decimated by drugs.
Their lives collided Wednesday night when Heape tried shoplifting a pair of shorts, a notebook and a pen from a South Beach CVS, 1421 Alton Rd. Ruiz tried collaring him outside the pharmacy.
Heape, 29, pulled a handgun and pumped three rounds into Ruiz’s chest, police say.
Ruiz, 39, staggered back into the pharmacy, wrapped his arms around a customer and collapsed. He later died at the hospital.
When Miami Beach Officer Agustin Latorre found Heape hiding behind a Chevron gas station a block away, the killer put the gun to his head and ended his own life.
Across the country, the families of both men struggled to cope Thursday.
”He loved the security guard service work — and it led him to death,” said Ruiz’s sister, Maria Orrala.
Though he longed to be a police officer, Ruiz had always worked private security guard services.
Born in Ecuador and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., he worked security guard services for salsa shows as a young man. His niece, Betsy Zuniga, remembered 15 years ago Ruiz got her backstage to meet salsa stars such as Oscar D’Leon, Celia Cruz and Tito Puente. ”He was the one who taught me to walk. He taught me how to ride a bike. He got me into music,” said Zuniga, 32, of Northern California.
Ruiz, of Kendall, had been the subject of news coverage before — as a security guard manager, he helped a pregnant mother deliver a baby girl on the floor of a Florida City Wal-Mart in 2006.
”It was excellent customer service,” Ruiz joked at the time.
Said his sister: “He wanted to help. He was afraid if he didn’t help, the baby and the woman would die.”
Ruiz had worked security services at nights at the CVS for the past year. He was well-known to Miami Beach police dispatchers — he called often after catching shoplifters at the 24-hour pharmacy.
Though his mother worried, Ruiz relished the work. Two days before he was killed, he grumbled jokingly that he hadn’t caught any shoplifters recently.
Ruiz leaves behind a wife, Annette, and two daughters, ages 15 and 2.
His killer leaves behind a family long since broken.
Heape was raised in Mesa, Ariz., the son of drug-addled parents. ”He was treated like a dog,” said cousin, Justin Heape, 25, of Chicago. “He never knew the love of parents.”
His father, Richard Ray Heape, smoked crack cocaine, spun fantastic tales of gun running and busted his son’s lip with a hard-covered Bible.
Richard Ray Heape would later be left paralyzed after overdosing on heroin, suffering a seizure and hitting his head. Ernest Heape’s mother, Carol, vanished after abandoning him in a field when he was a teenager. About the same time, his sister, Charlene Heape, 15, ran away. She had been missing for a decade.
In seventh grade, Heape found a police officer’s gun left in a fanny pack in a shopping cart. He showed the gun off at school, was arrested and served a year in juvenile hall.
Heape held some promise. His art was fantastic. But dark. ”It was really sadistic, like people killing people,” Justin Heape said. “But I’ve never seen another artist draw like that. Ricky was phenomenal.”
As a young man, Heape — himself a cocaine user — moved to Florida, where three aunts live. Trouble followed. In 2005, Heape was arrested in an Orange City trailer park after kidnapping his ex-girlfriend, binding her wrists, ankles and mouth with duct tape.
He wielded a baseball bat-sized piece of wood and a butcher knife, threatening to stab her and himself.
”I’m crazy. There’s no telling what I’ll do,” he told her, according to her statement to detectives.
After an Orange City detective followed his footprints into the woods, a police dog helped chase him down.
Last month, Heape became a fugitive. Volusia County deputies found his fingerprints at the Ormond-by-the-Sea home of Scott McEvoy, 58, who had been severely beaten. The prints were on items, left in a trash can, that had been burglarized from nearby homes.
Miami Beach police say he was also implicated in another armed robbery in Volusia County. He shot someone in the shoulder — possible using the same gun he used to kill Ruiz.
”I hate to say it, but you kind of always knew it was going to turn out bad for that kid,” said William Heape, an estranged uncle. “It’s sad. One life ruined by another life, ruined by another . . . Our condolences go out to the family of the security guard.”
Said Justin Heape: “It’s a life wasted. It’s multiple lives wasted. My deepest condolences to the family of the security guard .”BY DAVID OVALLE . the miami herald
Video | Dedicated guard, troubled fugitive find death on Alton Rd.
Pictures of south beach security guard “Ruiz”
