Police today released surveillance images in hopes of catching the killer or killers of a 7-Eleven clerk, Mon Rai, on July 11.
The images show two men inside the 7-Eleven store at 5604 Gravois Avenue about the time 29-year-old store clerk Mon Rai was shot and killed. One is labeled a suspect; the other is labeled a possible witness to the crime. Police are hoping the public can identify both men.
Customers found Rai lying in an aisle early Monday, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his back. Police said the killer apparently took nothing in the store, but that there was a struggle between the victim and his killer moments before the killing, said Lt. Col. Al Adkins.
“We are working on the theory that this was a botched robbery at this point,” he said. “We can find no other reason that this occurred at this point.”
Rai, a Bhutanese immigrant who spent 19 years in a Nepalese refugee camp, came to St. Louis nine months ago with his wife and 7-year-old son. Rai’s wife is pregnant and expecting to give birth to a girl any day.
“When I came to St. Louis … my heart was full of hopes and dreams,” he wrote in an essay for a Thanksgiving program at the International Institute of St. Louis.
Rai lived in the 3800 block of Dunnica Avenue. He was taking English classes at the institute and helping as an interpreter for other refugees.
Rai started working at the 7-Eleven three days after Christmas, according to a caseworker for him and his family.
Anyone with information about the crime or the men pictured in the surveillance photos is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 1-866-371-8477.
News source : http://www.stltoday.com/
