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About a year and a half after New York City was left reeling by 9/11, the city was rocked by a series of shooting deaths that targeted shopkeepers.
The connection — a .40-caliber handgun — came to light on March 10, 2003, after 32-year-old Albert Kotlyar was found murdered in a Crown Heights, Brooklyn laundromat.
“He was shot once and killed at the counter where he worked. There was a shell casing that was found,” said Lt. John Cornicello, who’s now retired from the New York City Police Department’s Brooklyn North Homicide Squad.
“The money was still there. If there was a robbery, this money would be gone,” Cornicello added in the “Bloodshed in the Bodegas” episode of New York Homicide, which airs new episodes on Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.
In-store security cameras captured a lone gunman shooting Kotlyar after using the shop’s restroom. The scene was dusted for prints. A coffee cup outside the establishment was collected as evidence.
The .40-caliber shell casing triggered Cornicello’s memory of two other similar homicides, both of which happened on the same day about a month earlier. “One was in Queens,” he said. “One was in South Brooklyn.”
Three shooting victims killed with same type of gun
Shortly before 7 a.m. on February 8, 2003, John Freddy, 43, was shot while drinking coffee in an Ozone Park, Queens mini market. Surveillance video showed two men enter the store. One started shooting before they both ran out.
The same day, two hours later, Sukhjit “Sammy” Khajala, 50, was found fatally shot behind the counter of his bodega in Mill Basin, Brooklyn.
A .40-caliber casing was found at both crime scenes. There was no sign of a robbery attempt at either scene. Investigators grappled with finding a common thread. “Was it a racial thing? What was the link here?” Shaila Dewan, a journalist with The New York Times, explained of what investigators were up against.
Kotlyar, who was of Russian nationality, lived with his parents and his sister.
Freddy, an immigrant from Guyana, worked as a dairy manager at a market near where he was killed. “He was married. They had a six-year-old son,” said Keach Hagey, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
Khajala, who was married, was from India. “Everybody knew them,” his friend Kathie Dunn told New York Homicide. “In our community, we all get along. There’s a lot of different cultures.”
Investigators process video and DNA evidence
Security footage from a Crown Heights gas station showed a man matching the build of the laundromat shooter buying coffee there. The cup collected as evidence was sent to the crime lab for DNA analysis.
A ballistics report showed that the .40-caliber casings found at the scenes where all three victims were killed were all fired from the same gun. The specter of a serial killer sent fear through the city.
Inspector Vito Spano, now retired from the NYPD Cold Case Squad, headed the 20-member task force that was formed to catch the “.40-Caliber Killer,” as the case became known.
Investigators reviewed additional video evidence. They struggled to identify a reason behind the point-blank murders. “For every one of them, there was no motive behind the shootings,” said Sgt. Chuck Ribando, now retired from the NYPD’s 75th Precinct in Brooklyn
The task force on the case tracked down security footage from an apartment complex shortly before the laundromat murder.
“We see a man, and he’s dressed in what appears to be the same clothing of the person that we know is the shooter,” Cornicello said. “He’s climbing over the wrought iron fence to get into the property.”
Shooter seen walking with limp
The video held two vital clues. The suspect walked with a limp, and he wore a baseball cap with a “B” on it, and an “X.” Police determined that it was a Boston Red Sox cap, and the “X” was on a sales sticker.
A sketch artist created a rendering that was released to the public, and a $20,000 reward was announced for help leading to the suspect’s capture.
Another victim killed in Brooklyn
On March 20, police responded to a shooting in a Brooklyn bodega. “There were two victims, two people from Yemen,” Spano said.
Mohammed Abdo Nasser Ali, 54, was dead at the scene. Yakoob Aldailam, 20, who’d been shot while hiding behind the counter, was rushed to the hospital. Aldailam survived his wounds but was unable to describe the shooter in any detail.
A witness described the shooter as an African American man in his late 20s. No money was taken from the scene. The firearm used in the slaying was a .9mm handgun.
Cornicello considered the circumstances and drew a conclusion. “It’s the same guy. He changed guns,” he said. “It’s got to be the same guy.”
“Motive for this was just murder”
But what drove him to commit multiple homicides was still a mystery. “It was looking like the motive for this was just murder, to kill people,” Spano said.
After the latest shootings, shopkeepers felt hunted, according to New York Homicide. “Bodega owners believed they were targeted,” Zaid Nagi, a bodega owner and community activist, said on the series.
Police reached out to the media for help. Investigators caught a break when a tipster called and claimed “he emphatically knew” the shooter’s identity, said Spano.
A surprise confession
At the 77th Precinct in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NYPD detectives interviewed the tipster, 31-year-old Larme Price. He claimed the sketch on the posters that were released reminded him of one of his neighbors. The interview left detectives with a gut feeling about Price. They called and requested a second interview, and he agreed.
At this time, police observed that Larme walked with a limp, like the shooter in the laundromat video. In the task force office, Price shocked police when he matter-of-factly said, “You know I’m the guy you’re looking for,” Cornicello said.
To ensure Price wasn’t giving a false confession, police grilled him about the murders. He provided details about coffee cups, climbing over a fence, and swapping a .40-caliber gun for a .9mm one.
He told police the .9mm gun was at his girlfriend’s apartment in a jacket pocket. Investigators recovered it and matched it to the March 20 shootings.
The DNA on the coffee cup from the laundromat crime scene was found to match Price’s, and a Boston Red Sox cap was recovered from Price’s car.
Larme Price arrested and charged with four murders
Price was officially charged with four counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. Detectives asked Price what drove him to kill.
“He said he was upset over 9/11 and he somehow thought that he could avenge this by shooting people of Arabic and Muslim descent,” said Spano.
Price’s mental instability came to light. “He eventually tells police that he was feeling vibes. It’s like, ‘The vibes were telling me to do this. The vibes were telling me to do that,’” Dewan said.
Price identified the second man caught on tape entering the Ozone Park mini market, who was seen running out with him when Price started shooting. The other man told police that he didn’t know that Price had a gun. The district attorney “chose not to charge him for any part of that crime because he was more valuable as a witness,” Cornicello said.
Price agreed to a plea deal to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Learn more about the case by watching the “Bloodshed in the Bodegas” episode of New York Homicide, which airs new episodes on Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.
