Pizza Chain Clerk Samuel Wallace Dies From Shooting Wounds

A Pizza Hut employee shot Saturday while trying to protect a young colleague has died.

DeKalb police say 34-year-old Samuel Wallace, who never regained consciousness after the shooting, died on Monday. Police said Wallace didn't know the gunman who shot him twice before taking his own life.

Mark Wallace says his older brother had just started working at the Covington Highway Pizza Hut two months ago, trying to ea some extra income as he finished his studies at a nearby trade school. The married father of four was a pizza delivery man, who just happened to be at the counter on Saturday when he was shot, which makes his murder even more painful for grieving loved ones.

"For him to be at work, an innocent bystander -- that's kind of hard to take for a family," said Mark Wallace.

DeKalb police say a young man entered the restaurant around 11 a.m., ordered food from the manager -- who was the man 's ex-girlfriend – and then started arguing with Wallace when the woman went to the back.

"The guy was trying to have a conversation with the manager more, and he was trying to get back there. [Samuel Wallace] was trying to prevent that...He was shot and then [the shooter] jumped over the counter because the manager ran to the back further. She pleaded and after that, he tued the gun on himself," said Mark Wallace.

While the anguish is unbearable for Wallace's parents, wife and children, Mark says there is some sense of pride knowing his big brother died trying to protect a young colleague.

"It makes us feel so much better that he really was just trying to keep the peace more, or just trying to make sure that nothing happens to this person," said Mark Wallace.

Samuel Wallace's oldest child is an 18-year-old college freshman, his youngest is only 8 years old.

While Mark Wallace says this is the hardest thing they've ever had to deal with, he says his family has been praying for the family of gunman who took his own life as well as for the young woman who watched it all unfold.