ST. LOUIS (AP) - A St. Louis man has been convicted in the shooting death of an Ethiopian refugee who was working at a convenience store to earn enough money to bring his wife and children from a refugee camp to St. Louis.
Antonio Muldrew, 41, was found guilty Wednesday of first-degree murder and five other charges in the July 2014 death of convenience store clerk Abdulrauf Kadir. He faces a life sentence.
The Missouri attorney general's office said in a news release that Muldrew shot Kadir three times in the chest and abdomen before going behind the counter himself to make change and sales for patrons as Kadir bled. Muldrew then grabbed cash and lottery tickets from the register and counter and fatally shot Kadir in the head twice when he sought help from customers.
Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who prosecuted the case, said Muldrew told police, "He was going to die anyway. I wanted to make sure he was dead. He said he had two kids but I didn't care," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
Kadir had immigrated to the United States from Kenya after fleeing his home country of Ethiopia in the midst of a civil war. Schmitt said in the release that his life was "unnecessarily and brutally cut short."