Britt Prawat

32-year-old Javid Akhtar ran the One Stop convenience store pretty much all on his own. He was there seven days a week. And just like the name suggests, One Stop was a place the residents of East Windsor stopped into often to stock up on everything from groceries to coffee to cigarettes and lottery tickets.

Brian dialed 911 as quickly as he could from his cell phone, and within minutes, police and EMTs were screeching into the parking lot. East Windsor Police Chief Matthew Carl was a detective with the department at the time. He was nearby investigating an unrelated robbery at a gas station that night when he got the call about the shooting.

He was on the scene at the one-stop in less than three minutes, and he says Javid was in bad shape as paramedics loaded him into an ambulance and raced him to the hospital.

With Javid clinging to life at the hospital, detectives back at the scene started trying to figure out what had happened, first checking to make sure no one else had been hurt. When they stepped into the one-stop, they found no other victims. In fact, the store was quiet and tidy. There was nothing to indicate something had just gone horribly wrong only a few steps outside.

No signs of a struggle, cash still in the register. In fact, the only things that seemed out of place were a single snack cake and a broom, both lying on the ground. It was as if Javid had been sweeping the floors and dropped the broom when he was interrupted by whatever went down. As detectives surveyed the store, Javid's brother Muhammad pulled up outside.

He'd been sent to check on him by Javid's wife, Rafia.

It's not hard to imagine the sinking feeling Muhammad must have felt when he headed toward the one-stop and saw the red and blue flashing lights from a distance. And he understandably didn't stay at the scene for long. He told police Rafi had sent him over to check on Javid and confirmed that his brother had been working alone at the store that night.

And then Muhammad raced to the hospital where Rafi had met him to wait for news on Javid's condition. Meanwhile, detectives searched the store parking lot and began to canvas the wider area. Ryan, the guy who'd called 911, had stayed at the scene. He told police about the pop sound he'd heard and the brief glimpse he'd gotten of two people running across the street.

But it was really dark out, so he couldn't make out much detail. Here's Detective Scott Roberts, now the lead detective on the case.

So that's two witnesses describing similar suspects and pointing police toward the fence on the edge of the Mill Pond Village apartments. A sprawling housing complex with multiple buildings, a few big parking lots, and hundreds of units. A place Chief Carl said police knew well.

Detectives found physical evidence that backed up those witness accounts as they shone their flashlights across the snowy ground outside the store. There were cracks in the smooth white surface. Shoe prints. They showed that two people were headed toward Mill Pond. And fast.

Police followed the prints, but the path suddenly stopped at the Mill Pond parking lot. It had been plowed. No snow means no more shoe prints. A canine handler and his dog Mac were also brought out to the area to see if they could track ascent from the parking lot where Javid was found to wherever the shooter or shooters may have gone.

And Mac did track ascent right along the same path to the fence. In fact, Mac took them even further into the complex and to one set of apartments called the U Building. Police talked to the folks who lived there, but no one had seen their suspects running over there. It would be a dead end for investigators. The first of many.

Investigators kept canvassing around Mill Pond through the night and into the next morning. And as the sun rose, they took a closer look at the scene. They found a latent fingerprint on the fence and took it into evidence along with castings of the shoe print impressions and more fingerprints, many of them from the door to the one-stop.

You can imagine that door was covered in prints because people were going in and out of the store all day, every day. So sorting through those was a bust. There was no way to tell which ones might be from a suspect. And despite several eyewitness accounts of the suspected attackers running away, no one could say who they were.

Even though police had arrived at the scene of Javid's shooting quickly and were able to lock down the parking lot at Mill Pond almost immediately, witnesses did say they saw two vehicles, a red Mustang and a black SUV, leaving the neighborhood after the gunshot with a couple of guys inside.

So it sounded like at least a few people had left the area that night after the shooting, but before the area was secured. Chief Carl said they put out a Bolo on that Mustang and did a lot of work with the DMV in an attempt to track it down, but no luck. And the black SUV isn't exactly a unique car, and they just couldn't track it down without even a make or a model.

But since Mill Pond was a high crime neighborhood and home to multiple people with criminal records, they had a long list of folks they wanted to talk to, and they asked for some help.

And one by one, their list of potential suspects dwindled and then dried up entirely. And although they weren't getting any closer to a suspect, there was one common thread as they asked locals what they'd heard, what they saw, who they knew in the neighborhood. Pretty much everyone knew and liked Javid. Here's Detective Roberts again.

Chief Carl said that most folks in the police department knew Javid too. They'd stop into his store for a caffeine fix or a snack on their patrol shifts and remembered him as a friendly, helpful part of their little community. Everyone they talked to described him the same way, so who would want to hurt him?