A July 28, 2022 evening trip to Jo’s Nails & Spa in the Merchant Walk shopping center ended with deadly violence. Around 6:30 p.m., gunfire rang out inside the salon. Summersville police say 52-year-old Patrick Wayne Cater entered armed with a semiautomatic pistol, shot and fatally wounded 45-year-old Khuyen Van Le and 40-year-old Phi Anh Le, and was then engaged and shot by two officers. Both victims were pronounced dead at the scene; Cater was taken to Summersville Regional Medical Center and later pronounced dead.

Khuyen Van Le was a Summersville resident, born in Vietnam on June 19, 1977; his obituary listed surviving children, parents, and siblings. Investigators reported that Cater and Khuyen Van Le were co-lease owners of the salon, the only publicly identified connection between them at that stage. Several other people were inside the business but were not physically injured. The motive had not been publicly established and authorities described the incident as isolated.

Did anyone who worked at or frequented Jo’s Nails & Spa know about tensions involving the business or the people named?