Britt Prawat

The few clues they had suggested a potential robbery because even though most everyone loved Javid... There were a few people who weren't his biggest fans, because Javid wasn't a big fan of shoplifters, and he'd caught a few. He'd also dealt with more serious confrontations.

Detective Roberts says investigators assumed at first that this shooting must have been another robbery attempt gone wrong. The only issue with that theory? Javid wasn't robbed.

And Javid even had over $400 in cash on him. So apparently whoever shot him didn't pat him down or check his pockets for money. And within arm's reach of the doorway at one stop were multiple things any wannabe robber likely would have reached out and snatched.

there were rolls of lotto tickets and cartons of cigarettes stacked up right by the registers chief carl still thinks that whoever came to the one stop was probably planning to rob javid but he doesn't think they ever made it inside the store to carry out their plan in fact he thinks they were outside and for whatever reason javid went to them the chief's theory is that because javid had been robbed before he might have just been fed up and was not about to go through it again

Maybe he saw these guys headed for his door. Maybe he heard a commotion outside. Maybe he had a gut feeling and for a split second he knew he was going to be robbed and tried to stop it.

Investigators wanted to see if anything in Javid's history at the store could be connected to the shooting. So they spoke to Rafia to see what she remembered. And pretty much right away, she pointed the finger at a repeat shoplifter who we'll call Leo. Leo lived nearby and apparently Javid had had words with him in the past over his sticky fingers.

Rafael was convinced that this guy must have been the one who pulled the trigger. But when police contacted Leo about the night Javid was shot, he had a rock solid alibi. And when word got out that Javid wasn't robbed, the talk around town started shifting toward another possibility. Was this a hate crime?

Javid and his family were Muslim, and at the time, police were seeing a trend across Connecticut. Muslim store owners were being robbed, sometimes violently. Chief Carl said he remembered at least one store robbery in Connecticut that turned deadly for a Muslim store owner.

So in the wake of Javid's shooting, many people spoke out about their fear that the crimes against Muslim store owners were hate crimes. But without knowing who killed Javid, police couldn't determine what the motive was. And as two, then three days ticked by, Javid lay unconscious in the hospital. His family prayed he'd pull through, but day by day, his recovery seemed less and less likely.

And despite his family trying to stay by his side every possible second, they still had a business to run. The store was their livelihood. So just a few days after the shooting, Javid's brother Muhammad reopened. But rather than handing out products to customers who kept the store so busy, he found himself on the receiving end.

A steady tide of customers came to the shop offering him flowers and cards, lighting candles and leaving gifts and teddy bears outside.

Community members held fundraisers for the family like bake sales and car washes and gathered one night for a crowded candlelight vigil where they shared stories of just how kind Jeffy had been to them over the years and reminded his wife and kids how much their neighborhood cared about him.

It was cold comfort for his family, though, especially his wife, Rafia, who was distraught with grief and guilt. See, on any other night, Rafia would probably have been at work with her husband. She often joined him at the store to help out, but she'd stayed home that night because she wasn't feeling well.

Detectives learned that Javid and Rafia had gotten married in the late 90s after Javid had moved into the United States from Pakistan following Rafia, who'd come a few years earlier. They'd met through a family connection when Rafia was back home for a visit, and they'd fallen madly in love.

Rafia actually told a reporter for the Hartford Courant that their romance was such a whirlwind that she was the one to propose to Javid. In the years since they'd settled in Connecticut, Javid and Rafia had twins, a boy and a girl, who were about six at the time of the shooting. Javid owned the one-stop and worked there day in and day out, his young son often helping out.

Rafia told The Current reporter that the two would read the Quran together between customers. Rafia also told The Current that even though she was wrangling two young kids at home and had been badly hurt in a car accident a few years earlier, she helped out at the store to spend time with her husband whenever she could.

But that night, Javid had encouraged her to stay home and rest, and she'd taken his advice. Rafia told that reporter that she kept replaying that decision in her mind, wondering if she would have been able to protect her husband if she'd been there, or maybe she would have been able to do something, like at least been able to identify his attackers.

Instead, she was left to rack her brain for anyone she could think of who would want to hurt her husband. The stress of it all impacted her so severely that, at one point, she called investigators from the hospital, excitedly telling them that Javid had woken up and told her who shot him. But when detectives arrived, they quickly determined that that was impossible.

Despite the family's desperate hopes that Javid would wake up and tell them who shot him, it wouldn't come to pass. Because on March 10th, 10 days after he was attacked, Javid succumbed to his injuries and died. The shooting investigation turned into a homicide, and with his death came a key piece of evidence. The bullet recovered from his body.

Chief Carl said he was in the room when the post-mortem examination was performed on Javid and watched medical examiners recover the bullet, which had been lodged near his heart. They hadn't tried to remove the bullet while Javid was alive because he wouldn't have survived that surgery.