COVINGTON - Until Monday, there had been one homicide in Covington in 2001. Then came two in one day.

        A convenience store worker shot a would-be robber to death in an exchange of gunfire Monday night, hours after a Cincinnati man was charged with fatally shooting a man in the face at the Jacob Price apartments.

        The man charged with murder in connection with the midday shooting at Jacob Price tried to elude police by swimming down the Licking River.

        It didn't work. After a car chase through Covington and Newport, officers pulled Dante English, 21, of Cincinnati from the Newport side of the Licking River and charged him with murder. He was being held at the Kenton County Jail Monday night. Bail had not been set.

        About 7:30 p.m., a man police identified as Perry Pinkelton, 36, of Elsmere, entered the Deli Mart Express at 1131 Lee St., displayed a handgun and demanded money from the clerk, according to Covington Police Capt. Charles Gurren.

        A second employee in the store was armed with a handgun, police said, and confronted the intruder. The robber fired three shots at the second employee but missed. The armed employee returned fire and shot the robber numerous times, police said. Neither employee was injured.

        Mr. Pinkelton died at St. Elizabeth Medical Center North.

        Police did not identify the store employees. No charges have been filed but the case remains under investigation.

        A neighbor, Mike Daniels, 44, said there have been previous robberies since new owners took over about a year ago.

        “Two weeks ago, someone put a gun in his face and robbed him,” Mr. Daniels said of the owner, whose name he did not know.

        In the first homicide, the chase followed a shooting at 2:54 p.m. outside of apartments 36 and 37 on 11th Street which sent Julian Hicks, 25, of Woolum Lane in Newport to University Hospital, where he later died. Police said Mr. Hicks was shot in the face.

        The two shootings happened about seven blocks apart.

        Monday's fatal shootings are the second and third homicides in Covington this year, said police spokesman Sgt. Teal Nally. Blas Diaz Carrasco, 31, was beaten to death in his Latonia apartment in September.

        Covington police investigated three homicides last year, according to their annual report, and seven deaths from suicides or accidental means.

        Monday's Jacob Price shooting was reported by Covington Police Spc. Chris Twehues. He was working at a nearby police substa tion when he heard gunshots. Spc. Twehues ran toward the noise and saw a man with a gun leaving the area of the shooting.

        Spc. Twehues chased him to Prospect Street, where the man jumped into a maroon car. The man drove the car the wrong way down Prospect Street before crossing the 12th Street bridge to Newport.

        That's when Newport police joined the chase. The man drove to the 200 block of Central Street, where the road dead-ends at a floodwall. The man then scaled the floodwall and waded into the Licking.

        Crowds gathered around the scene of the shooting on 11th Street as more officers combed the lawn for a bullet or casings. Lt. Nally wouldn't say what the motive of the shooting was, but said there was a heated argument before the shooting.

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