Patel’s wife was more than 6 months pregnant when he died.
AB Wire
NEW YORK: Three suspects have been identified in the murder of an Indian American clerk and gas station manager in Connecticut, Sanjay Patel, 39, inside a New Haven gas station last month, including one man who is suspected of killing the owner of a Bridgeport store owner just days later.
The New Haven victim, Patel, whose wife was pregnant at the time he died, was shot more than five times during a robbery at the Pay Rite Food Store at the Citgo station on Forbes Avenue on the night of Monday, April 6, reported NBC.
Police said one gunman shot Patel four times, the other shot him more than once, then fled with cash and a box of cigars.
“He’s my main power, my life, and he is no more,” pregnant widow Bhavana Chavada had said inconsolably of her late husband. “Why? Just money? Just robbery?”
Police secured arrest warrants for three suspects on Thursday morning.
One of thoses suspects, Dwayne Sayles, 21, of New Haven, was taken into custody around 11:30 a.m. Thursday, with the help of U.S. Marshals. Sayles was charged with felony murder, murder, criminal possession of a pistol and first-degree robbery and is in the custody of New Haven police.
Police said they will also serve arrest warrants on Jamal Sumler, 23, and Leighton Vanderberg, 22, who has been charged in the murder of Bridgeport Store owner Jose Salgado.
Salgado was working at the store he owns with his wife, Sapiao’s Grocery at 351 Lexington Avenue in Bridgeport, on April 11 when armed robbers came in and demanded money, according to police. He was shot right after handing over the cash, NBC reported.
Vanderberg will be charged with felony murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery in the murder of Patel.
The New Haven Register reported Vanderberg has been identified by police as the getaway driver. Also in April, Vanderberg confessed to involvement in a separate Bridgeport robbery that ended in the slaying of a store owner, and has been in custody since April 15, held in lieu of $1 million bail, court records show.
Sumler, who is also incarcerated in Connecticut, will be charged with felony murder, murder, criminal possession of a pistol and first-degree robbery, reported NBC.
A surveillance video released by police shows Patel working behind the counter of the Pay Rite Food Store at Forbes Avenue and Fulton Street when two men enter the store wearing full face masks, reported the Register.
No weapon was found in the store or in the surrounding neighborhood when the police canvassed the area and it is unknown whether the suspects fled in a vehicle or on foot, Hartman said.
In the warrant for his arrest, Bridgeport police say Vanderberg told New Haven detectives “that the image of the homicide victim’s wife from the Bridgeport shooting was weighing heavy on him and he wanted to get this off his chest.”
New Haven police had said since April that they were investigating whether there was a connection between the Bridgeport case and the Forbes Avenue killing of Patel. This was based in part on the fact that there was surveillance video of a light green Ford Focus spotted near both crime scenes.
Once Bridgeport police confirmed the make and model of the car seen near Salgado’s store, and broadcast the information to other police departments in the tri-state area, New Haven police Lt. Herb Johnson contacted Bridgeport police to notify them that detectives here were investigating a similar crime with a similar vehicle, the Bridgeport warrant affidavit for Vanderberg states. The light green Ford Focus believed to be connected to the Bridgeport homicide was towed from a New Haven street in April.
Last month, the New Haven Independent reported how a year after she survived a fire, Bhavana Chavada once again has found herself surrounded by friends—this time as a survivor of homicide.
Chavada, who is 48 years old and was six and a half months pregnant with her and Patel’s first child when he died, wept on the couch of her second-floor Farren Avenue apartment as she recalled the husband whose life was suddenly snatched from her.
“He was so happy, so happy” about the pending arrival of their baby after years of their trying to get pregnant, Chavada said. When he was home—when he wasn’t working his Monday-Saturday 10-12-hour shifts behind the register at the Pay Rite—he urged her to stay in bed while he looked after her.
People in the neighborhood called Patel “Sunny” and “Jalebi,” an Indian word for a sweet jelly bean-like treat, because he liked to hand out candy to the kids.
Chavada and Patel called each other “baby.”
“I love you baby! I miss you!” Chavada called out as her friend Slesha Desai brought her a tissue. “My heart is broken.”
Patel came to the U.S. around 14 years ago from the Borsad, a town in Gujarat, in search of economic opportunity, according to his wife and friends. He worked hard, first at a New Jersey motel, then at the Pay Rite. He worked at least six days a week, sometimes seven.
Chavada was living in New Jersey and working in New York City’s Diamond District in 2009 when she met Patel on a matchmaking site called shaadi.com. They chatted for two days. Then Patel typed: “I want to marry you.”
He was living in Connecticut by then, Chavada said. She came to visit him. And she said yes. They were married in a Hindu ceremony at Westville’s Regal Inn. Later, in 2014, they obtained a civic marriage license, reported the Independent.