Ossama Haj-Hussein, 43, was fatally shot on May 12, 2006, inside the In & Out Food Mart in Raleigh, North Carolina, a store he owned and operated. He was reportedly eating breakfast and drinking coffee when Samuel James Cooper entered, robbed the store and shot him twice—once in the head and once in the face—with at least one shot fired at close range. A customer who entered the store later discovered his body.

Investigators later linked Haj-Hussein’s slaying to four other homicides by ballistics evidence tying bullets to a 9mm Ruger handgun that Cooper had dropped while fleeing a bank robbery in November 2007. Cooper, then 33 at the time of the later arrest, confessed during police interrogations and was charged with five counts of first-degree murder, including Haj-Hussein’s. At trial the defense presented evidence of severe childhood abuse and argued diminished mental capacity; the jury convicted Cooper on all counts and recommended life imprisonment without parole. Cooper is serving that sentence at Warren Correctional Institution.

Does anyone have memories of the In & Out Food Mart or Haj-Hussein from that time who could add context to this case?