On the evening of June 27, 1985, a male named Clyde Jenkins, a 72-year-old grocer in Hampton, Virginia, was nearing the end of his workday at Bon's Supermarket. The quiet closing routine was shattered at approximately 10 p.m. when a man, later identified as Herman Charles Barnes, accosted a store employee who was sweeping the parking lot. Brandishing a pistol, Barnes forced the employee back inside the supermarket, using him as a human shield.
Inside the store, Jenkins confronted the armed intruder. A struggle ensued between the elderly store owner and Barnes, tragically ending with Jenkins being shot twice at point-blank range. Hearing the commotion from the back of the store, another employee, Mohammad Yakien Afifi, a 42-year-old male, rushed to the front to help. Afifi bravely jumped on Barnes, but was shaken off and then fatally shot. After killing both men, Barnes pointed his gun at the first employee he had taken hostage.
Herman Charles Barnes was subsequently arrested and, in July 1986, convicted of capital murder for the deaths of Clyde Jenkins and Mohammad Afifi. He was sentenced to death for Jenkins' murder in September of that same year. Years later, a federal judge ordered a resentencing due to prosecutors failing to disclose that a gun was found under Jenkins' body, evidence that could have potentially influenced the initial sentencing. Despite this, Barnes's conviction was upheld.
After years of appeals, Herman Charles Barnes was executed by lethal injection on November 13, 1995, at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia. He was 31 years old at the time of his execution. The case was a stark reminder of the senseless violence that cut short the lives of two men during a grocery store robbery on a summer night in Hampton.
