Sukhjit “Sammy” Khajala, 50, an Indian immigrant man, was working behind the counter as the cashier at the Around the Clock Minimart in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, on February 8, 2003, when a gunman stepped inside and turned an ordinary shift into a sudden, irreversible tragedy. The store was the kind of place built on routine—quick purchases, small talk, the steady rhythm of a neighborhood’s day—but that afternoon the routine was shattered in seconds.
Khajala was shot in the face during a robbery, and the killer reached into the register, taking $169 before leaving the store.
What made the crime even more chilling was how quickly it fit into a larger pattern. Only about two hours earlier, another shopkeeper had been murdered in Queens in a strikingly similar way, and investigators would soon connect both killings to the same. 40-caliber revolver. The attacks felt random to the public—quiet working people struck down without warning—and for store owners across the city, the fear wasn’t abstract. It was personal, the sense that a stranger could walk in at any moment and decide a life was worth less than whatever cash happened to be in the drawer.
As detectives compared ballistics and video, the case widened. The same shooter would be linked to two more killings in the weeks that followed, bringing the total to four victims across Brooklyn and Queens. Surveillance footage and eyewitness descriptions helped shape the image of a suspect—his clothing, his composure, even the way he moved. The shooter didn’t flee in a panic; he was described as leaving with an unnerving calm, as if he had all the time in the world.
The break came at the end of March. Larme Price emerged as the primary suspect after approaching police and drawing attention to himself, and he was arrested on March 29, 2003. Investigators said he confessed to the string of killings, and evidence recovered during the investigation included a handgun tied to the shootings as well as items of clothing believed to match what the gunman wore. Prosecutors pursued severe charges, including first-degree murder counts that treated the killings as part of a serial pattern, and the case moved toward a high-stakes outcome.
In the end, Price did not go to a prolonged trial. He entered a plea agreement that spared him the possibility of a death sentence and led to a sentence of life without parole, imposed on February 11, 2004. For Khajala’s loved ones, the legal conclusion could never rewind the moment the bell over the door rang and a stranger stepped in, but it did answer the central question that haunted the case: the person responsible had been identified, convicted, and would not walk free again.
