The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Wed Feb 19, 2014 10:11 PM

The widow of a man fatally shot at a Chandler Walmart said he was protecting her when the shooting occurred.



Kriston Charles Belinte Chee, 36, was fatally wounded Sunday during a fight with Cyle Wayne Quadlin, 25, according to police.



Quadlin, who is suspected of pulling out a gun and opening fire, said he was losing the fight and was “in fear for his life,” said Sgt. Joe Favazzo, a Chandler police spokesman.



Belinte Chee’s wife, Arlinda Shirley, who was standing next to her husband when he was shot, said he died protecting her.



“He was just standing there,” she said. “I can’t go into details of what happened, but I just want to say he died protecting me.”



Quadlin has not been arrested because police investigators said he told them he was trying to defend himself when he and Belinte Chee got into the altercation. Favazzo said that the police investigation is ongoing and that detectives will submit their findings to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for review once the probe is complete.



Investigators are still interviewing witnesses to the shooting, the sergeant said.



Detectives have reviewed video from Walmart’s security-camera system that appeared to verify Quadlin’s description of the fight, Favazzo said.



“Just like what the guy said, he was not winning,” Favazzo said. “It’s going to come down to what the witnesses have to say.”



Police officers were called to the store near Alma School and Warner roads at about 4 p.m. Sunday after receiving a report of a shooting. Officers found Belinte Chee wounded at the scene. Quadlin had fled and was located later.



Belinte Chee was pronounced dead at a hospital later that day.



Quadlin and Belinte Chee were engaged a verbal dispute that turned into a physical altercation at the store’s service counter, Favazzo said.



It appears that the pair did not know each other before the fight, police said.



Shirley, the widow, said she and her husband had stopped at the store so that Belinte Chee could grab some items he needed for a construction project he was starting in Kingman.



He was helping build a church, she said.



It would have been their 19th anniversary in May, she said.



“We met at a church meeting,” Shirley said.



She laughed for a moment and corrected herself, saying that he had seen her at the meeting but that she didn’t remember him.



“He wrote me a poem and had his cousin send it to me,” she said. “I wish I could find that letter again.”



Shirley said she called her husband “Kris the Great” because he was a great father and husband and a great bricklayer who was well-respected in his industry.



Belinte Chee was a mason by trade and by passion, she said. He was a regular competitor in local masonry competitions, including Arizona’s Fastest Trowel Competition, she said. He placed second in this year’s Mason Contractors Association of America’s Fastest Trowel on the Block Competition, representing Arizona.



Belinte Chee and Shirley have three children, ages 15, 6 and 4.



“My kids are hanging in there,” Shirley said. “They break down here and there, but they are hanging in there.”