Between February 8 and March 20, 2003, four men were shot to death in small stores and a laundromat in Brooklyn and Queens, and a fifth man was wounded. Each was working in, or had stopped into, a neighborhood business. Police said the gunman did not rob the earlier victims, and for weeks investigators had little to go on but a general description and ballistic evidence linking several of the cases.
The case broke when Larme Price, a 30-year-old unemployed man from Crown Heights, walked into a Brooklyn precinct house in late March and offered to name the gunman. Detectives doubted his story. The next day he called one of them and admitted the shootings, police said. He told investigators he had gone out looking for Middle Eastern men to kill, in revenge for the attacks of September 11, 2001. The men he shot did not fit his stated aim: according to the Associated Press, at least two of the dead were not Middle Eastern at all.
Price was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder, charges that made him eligible for the death penalty. On February 11, 2004, a judgment of conviction was entered against him in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn. The Appellate Division affirmed his sentence in 2005, and his later attempts to challenge the conviction in federal court were turned away between 2014 and 2024.
Very little about Price's life before the shootings is on the record. When he was arrested in March 2003 he was 30 years old, lived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and was unemployed, according to the Associated Press and the Queens Chronicle. Police said he drove a Lexus. He had a girlfriend, whose handgun police said he used in the last of the shootings.
His mental health became a theme of the case from the first week. In court filings more than a decade later he described severe mental illness and said he had been held in prison mental health units. What the record does not show is a court finding about his mental state at the time of the crimes.
John Freddy was 43. He had come to the United States from Guyana at the age of 13, settling first in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, according to the Queens Chronicle. By 2003 he was the dairy manager at a supermarket in Ozone Park, Queens, and he regularly bought his morning coffee at a small market across the street before work.
He was there on the morning of February 8, 2003, when he was shot and killed. He left a wife and a six-year-old son. The family had been planning to move upstate; after his death, the Queens Chronicle reported, they planned to move to New Jersey instead.
In March 2003 the TimesLedger newspaper of Queens reported that Freddy's death was the only Queens killing police had so far connected to a series of shootings in Brooklyn.
Sukhjit Khajala was 50. On the same day as John Freddy's death, February 8, 2003, he was shot and killed at the convenience store where he worked in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, according to the TimesLedger and the Queens Chronicle. Little more about his life has been reported.
Albert Kotlyar was 32 and worked at a laundromat in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. He was shot and killed there early on a Monday morning in March 2003, according to the TimesLedger, which reported the killing in its issue of March 13. (The Queens Chronicle spelled his surname Kotylar.) The laundromat's surveillance video recorded the gunman, and that footage later mattered: detectives would notice that the man who walked into their precinct moved the way the man on the tape did.
The Associated Press reported that one of the men killed was from Russia. No report says in so many words which of the dead men that was.
The last man to die was 54, according to the Associated Press, which gave his name as Mohammed Ali Nassir. The Queens Chronicle called him Mohammed Abdo Nasser Ali and gave his age as 53. He worked at a small store in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and on March 20, 2003, he was shot at close range there and killed. A second worker was also shot and was hospitalized; he survived. He is not named here.
Police later said that a different handgun was used in this shooting than in the earlier ones, and that it belonged to Price's girlfriend.
By mid-March detectives believed they were looking at a series. The TimesLedger reported on March 13, 2003, that more than 20 detectives had been assigned to a task force and that police believed four early-morning killings had been carried out by the same people. Three of those four killings had been linked to the same handgun. Police noted that the victims had little or no warning, that the gunman did not rob them, and that in more than one case substantial amounts of cash were left in the register. At that stage police spoke of two suspects; the paper reported a $12,000 reward for information.
That first grouping of four was not the same as the four killings with which Price was later charged. Besides the deaths of John Freddy, Sukhjit Khajala and Albert Kotlyar, the TimesLedger's list included a fourth killing, on March 1, 2003, in East New York, Brooklyn, and police also said at the time that a February 1, 2003 shooting death in Jamaica, Queens, might be connected. Neither killing was among the charges Price faced. In April 2003 the Queens Chronicle reported that he had not been charged in the March 1 killing and that police were pursuing other leads in that case.
By the time of the arrest, the reward had risen to $20,000 and the task force numbered about 20, according to the Queens Chronicle. Investigators had few leads. Their description was of a Black man between 20 and 25, wearing a blue and red baseball cap marked with the letter B.
On a Friday afternoon at the end of March 2003, Price walked into the 77th Precinct station house in Brooklyn, according to the Queens Chronicle. He said he had information about the killings and blamed them on a man he knew as "Dog." Detectives were suspicious. One reason, police said, was the way he walked: he was pigeon-toed, like the gunman seen on the laundromat's video.
The next day, Price telephoned Detective Tony Viggiani and admitted the crimes, and he was arrested later that day, the Queens Chronicle reported. The Associated Press account, published March 30, 2003, gave the same sequence in outline: Price had contacted police saying he had information about the shootings, and when investigators asked him to come in for an interview he confessed to them by phone. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, speaking on Sunday, March 30, said Price had been arrested on Saturday.
After the arrest, investigators found a cap matching the witnesses' description in his car, according to the Queens Chronicle.
Kelly described the motive as Price had given it. According to the Associated Press, Price wanted to harm people of Middle Eastern descent because he was angry about the attack on the World Trade Center, and he told investigators the September 11 attacks had motivated him. Kelly told reporters that one man's distorted view of the world had cost four people their lives.
Police gave further detail to the Queens Chronicle. When he was angry, they said, Price drove around in his Lexus looking for people who looked Middle Eastern to kill. He used one handgun for the first three killings, then discarded it and used his girlfriend's handgun for the fourth. Kelly said Price had begun reading the Bible and decided to give himself up after reading the commandment "Thou shalt not kill."
The motive Price gave did not match the men who died. The Associated Press noted that although many of the targets were from the Middle East, at least two of the dead were not: one man was from Guyana and another from Russia. John Freddy, the first man killed, had come to New York from Guyana as a boy.
Price was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder, according to the Queens Chronicle, which reported that the charges made him eligible for the death penalty. The Associated Press report of March 30, 2003, described the charges as four counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. The killings charged were those of John Freddy in Ozone Park, Sukhjit Khajala in Mill Basin, Albert Kotlyar in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Mohammed Ali Nassir in Crown Heights.
The case was prosecuted by the office of the Kings County District Attorney, Charles J. Hynes, under Indictment No. 1915/03, according to the later appellate record.
On February 11, 2004, a judgment of conviction was entered against Price in Supreme Court, Kings County, before Justice Firetog. The Appellate Division's 2005 decision describes the appeal as one from the sentence imposed that day, and the federal court later referred to it as his "February 11, 2004 conviction."
The reported court decisions do not set out the counts of conviction, how the conviction was reached, or the sentence imposed.
Price appealed to the Appellate Division, Second Department. As limited by his own motion, the appeal raised only one claim: that his sentence was excessive. He was represented by Lynn W. L. Fahey and David P. Greenberg. For the People, the brief was filed under the name of District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, with Leonard Joblove, Rhea A. Grob and Renee Anderson.
On February 14, 2005, a five-justice panel (A. Gail Prudenti, presiding, with Howard Miller, Gloria Goldstein, William F. Mastro and Robert A. Lifson) affirmed the sentence without opinion. All five concurred. The decision is reported as People v Price, 15 AD3d 1017.
On October 14, 2010, Price, without a lawyer, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, asking the court to vacate his conviction. The respondent was James J. Walsh, a prison warden. On October 27, 2010, Judge Sandra L. Townes ordered Price to file an affirmation showing why the petition should not be dismissed as filed too late.
On September 30, 2014, Judge Townes denied the petition as time-barred. She declined to issue a certificate of appealability, finding that Price had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied, and the case was closed.
Five years later, on September 30, 2019, Price asked the court to reconsider. He argued that his mental health had prevented him from filing on time. The court considered the motion even though it, too, was late, and denied it on November 17, 2020.
On January 14, 2021, Price filed a further motion, saying he had never received Judge Townes's 2014 order and had therefore lost his chance to appeal it. Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall, who had taken over the case, denied that motion on December 29, 2021. She reasoned that the 2020 ruling on his reconsideration motion had opened a fresh 30-day period in which he could have appealed, and that this cured any harm from the delay in receiving the original order.
Price took that ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where his appeal was docketed on February 1, 2022, as No. 22-216. The district court denied him a certificate of appealability on February 16, 2022, and he asked the appeals court for one in March. The Second Circuit dismissed the appeal on August 17, 2022.
On September 19, 2023, Price filed a second motion asking the district court to set aside the 2014 decision. He said his severe mental illness had kept him from filing his petition in time, asked for a hearing on the point, and said he had relied on an inexperienced prison law library clerk. He listed the places he had been held since March 12, 2004, including Downstate Correctional Facility and, at Sullivan Correctional Facility, a segregated housing unit and an intensive care program.
Judge DeArcy Hall denied the motion on September 30, 2024. She found it untimely: it came long after her 2021 ruling, and Price offered no excuse for the delay. She also found it without merit: it repeated his earlier argument, and he had not tied his mental health treatment to his failure to file on time. The court wrote that his confinement in mental health facilities did not, by itself, excuse the delay. The only new authority he cited, a 2023 decision of the Fourth Circuit, was not binding in New York, and Price had offered nothing like the evidence of incompetency or treatment records presented in that case.
As of the federal order of September 30, 2024, Price remained in the custody of the New York prison system; in his 2023 filing he said he had been held in state facilities since March 12, 2004. No later court decision, transfer or news report has appeared, and his current facility is unknown.
Proven by the court record: a judgment of conviction entered against Price in Supreme Court, Kings County, on February 11, 2004, under Indictment No. 1915/03, and a sentence affirmed on appeal in 2005. The reported decisions do not list the counts of conviction or the terms of the sentence.
Charged: four counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder, for the four deaths and the wounding described above, according to news reports at the time of his arrest.
Confessed: according to Commissioner Kelly and the reports of March 30 to April 3, 2003, Price admitted the shootings to police.
Not charged: the March 1, 2003 killing in East New York, which police first grouped with the series, and the February 1, 2003 killing in Jamaica, Queens, which police said in March might be related. Neither has been attributed to Price.
Accounts differ on several details: the last victim's name and age (Mohammed Ali Nassir, 54, according to the Associated Press; Mohammed Abdo Nasser Ali, 53, according to the Queens Chronicle); Albert Kotlyar's surname (Kotlyar in the TimesLedger, Kotylar in the Queens Chronicle); the reward (about $12,000 in mid-March, $20,000 by the time of the arrest); and the number of gunmen (police spoke of two suspects in mid-March, before the arrest).
February 8, 2003: John Freddy, 43, is shot and killed in Ozone Park, Queens. On the same day Sukhjit Khajala, 50, is shot and killed in Mill Basin, Brooklyn.
March 2003, a Monday: Albert Kotlyar, 32, is shot and killed at the Bedford-Stuyvesant laundromat where he worked.
March 13, 2003: the TimesLedger reports a task force of more than 20 detectives and a ballistic link between three killings.
March 20, 2003: Mohammed Ali Nassir, 54, is shot and killed in Crown Heights, Brooklyn; a second worker is wounded and survives.
Late March 2003, a Friday: Price walks into the 77th Precinct and blames a man called "Dog."
The next day, a Saturday: he admits the shootings by telephone and is arrested.
March 30, 2003: Commissioner Raymond Kelly announces the arrest.
April 3, 2003: the Queens Chronicle reports four first-degree murder charges and two attempted murder charges, making him eligible for the death penalty.
February 11, 2004: judgment of conviction, Supreme Court, Kings County (Justice Firetog).
March 12, 2004: start of his time in state prison, by his own later account to the federal court.
February 14, 2005: the Appellate Division affirms the sentence (15 AD3d 1017).
October 14, 2010: he files a federal habeas petition.
September 30, 2014: the petition is denied as time-barred.
November 17, 2020: reconsideration is denied.
December 29, 2021: his motion to vacate is denied.
August 17, 2022: the Second Circuit dismisses his appeal.
September 30, 2024: a second motion to set aside the 2014 ruling is denied.