In the spring of 2003, a wave of fear had been quietly building in Brooklyn. A series of seemingly random, fatal shootings had been plaguing the borough, leaving a trail of grief and confusion. On March 20, 2003, this senseless violence claimed the life of Mohammed Ali Nassir, a 54-year-old man. He was inside a food store, sitting near the door, when he was shot and killed. Another employee was also wounded in the attack but survived.
This incident marked the final act in a deadly spree that had terrorized the city.
The breakthrough in the case came from an unlikely source. A 30-year-old man with a history of mental illness, Larme Price, walked into a police station on March 29, offering to help investigators find the person responsible for the recent string of killings. His offer, however, soon turned into a confession. During a phone call with investigators who had asked him to come in for an interview, Price admitted to the shootings. He revealed that his motive was a twisted sense of revenge for the September 11 terrorist attacks, and he had been targeting individuals he believed to be of Middle Eastern descent.
Price's violent campaign began on February 8, 2003, with the murder of John Freddy, a 40-year-old man from Guyana, who was shot while drinking coffee in a convenience store. The same. 40-caliber revolver was used just two hours later to kill Sukhjit Khajala, a 50-year-old Indian immigrant. On March 10, Albert Kotlyar, a 32-year-old Russian-born laundry manager, became the third victim. The attack on Mohammed Ali Nassir ten days later was the last in this deadly sequence. Although Price's stated intention was to harm people of Middle Eastern descent, his victims were from various backgrounds.
Following his confession, Larme Price was arrested and charged with four counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. He was subsequently indicted on three counts of first-degree murder, with one of the charges designating him as a serial killer. The other two first-degree murder counts were for committing murder during a robbery. The indictment also included multiple counts of second-degree murder and other charges related to the shooting spree that had left four people dead and a city on edge.
