Salvatore Perrone was a garment salesman from Staten Island who went from store to store in Brooklyn trying to sell clothing out of a bag. Between July and November 2012, three Brooklyn shopkeepers were shot dead in their own stores in separate attacks: Mohamed Gebeli, 65, in Bay Ridge; Isaac Kadare, 59, in Bensonhurst; and Rahmatollah Vahidipour, 78, in Flatbush. Ballistics tests tied all three killings to one firearm. Days after the third killing, police arrested Perrone, who was then 63. In February 2016 a Brooklyn jury convicted him of three counts of murder in the second degree, and in March 2016 he was sentenced to 75 years to life in prison. He denied the killings and said he had been framed.
The case frightened small business owners across southern Brooklyn for most of 2012. The three victims were immigrants who ran family stores, two born in Egypt and one in Iran, and each had been working alone when he was killed. No motive was reported.
Perrone was born and raised in Brooklyn. The Associated Press described him in 2012 as a Brooklyn native, and The Brooklyn Paper later called him a Bensonhurst native. By 2012 he lived on Staten Island, where some neighbors knew him by the nickname "Son of Sal," the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported. He was divorced and was living with a girlfriend at the time of his arrest.
He had been in the clothing business for decades. A Bay Ridge shop owner who had been his friend for about ten years told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that the two men met when Perrone ran a clothing store of his own in Bay Ridge, and that even then he often tried to sell goods to other local merchants. The two also went to regular dances at a local social club, where, the friend said, Perrone mixed easily with the crowd. "I know him very well, he was very friendly," the friend said. "But if someone told me before that he was a killer, I wouldn't believe it."
A man who had worked for him in the 1980s, speaking to the same paper without giving his name, said Perrone had always been a little odd, describing repetitive habits such as checking himself over and over, opening and closing doors, and rewriting checks many times. He said Perrone and his former wife had been nice people. A pharmacist in Bay Ridge who filled his prescriptions until early 2012 described him as friendly and well dressed, often with a large cigar, and recalled that he examined each pill separately when he picked up his medicine. The Brooklyn Ink, a Brooklyn news site, reported a pharmacy worker's account that Perrone checked his tablets for brand names and once asked to examine them with a loupe.
His finances had been in trouble for years. Civil court records showed that he had defaulted on mortgage loans for a home on Staten Island, and that he had been sued by a credit union in 2010, by a gas utility in 2004 and by an individual in 1999 over money owed; those cases had since been resolved, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported. A neighbor on Staten Island told The Brooklyn Ink that he had been married and had a daughter, that his wife and daughter were no longer living there, and that she had often heard him rail at his wife.
In 2001 Perrone was arrested in Pennsylvania on charges of burglary and stalking a former girlfriend, CBS New York reported. The outcome of that case was not reported.
By 2012 he was still selling door to door. Police later said he went from store to store trying to sell clothing, and a Bay Ridge dry cleaner told CBS New York that Perrone had visited his shop several times after the first killing. Another Bay Ridge merchant told The Brooklyn Ink that Perrone had once sold him poor-quality thread.
Mohamed Gebeli was 65 and had come to the United States from Egypt. He was a Muslim. He owned a clothing store in Bay Ridge. Friends told The Brooklyn Ink that he loved feta pie, took his coffee with half and half and sweetener, and followed the Egyptian soccer club Al Ahly, and that he greeted the neighbors every day and worked long hours even when business was slow. A friend recalled that Gebeli had once told him he felt he would die in that store.
Gebeli was found dead in his store on July 6, 2012. He had been shot. A service was held at a local mosque the next day, and his family flew his body to Egypt for burial, The Brooklyn Ink reported. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that the killing alarmed both the business and the residential communities of Bay Ridge. Police had no suspect and no motive.
On July 27 his family went back to the store to draw public attention to the case, News 12 Brooklyn reported. His son kept the business going afterward, but it struggled. He told WABC-TV that the store had been closed as a crime scene for about a month and a half and had lost much of its trade, and that the electric utility was threatening to cut off power over an unpaid bill. "There's a lot of extra things that's coming on top of me that I'm supposed to deal with and it's not even my fault," he said.
The family knew Perrone. Gebeli's son told WABC-TV that he had known him for about 15 years and that his father had known him longer; he told CBS New York that Perrone had been a customer of the family for 20 years. "We treated him so nice every time he comes here," he said. Police told WABC-TV that there was no sign of any dispute between the two men, that Perrone gained no money or business from the killing, and that they had been friends.
Isaac Kadare was 59. He was born in Egypt and was a devout Sephardic Jew who studied the Talmud every day, WABC-TV reported. He had four children: two teenage daughters, a teenage son and a 10-year-old daughter. Friends described him as a hard worker and a "good and decent man." He also owned the building that housed his store, and the couple who lived upstairs told WABC-TV that he was a landlord who would "do anything for his tenants." His store in Bensonhurst was a discount shop.
Kadare was killed in his store on the evening of August 2, 2012. The medical examiner found that he had been shot and stabbed, and ruled his death a homicide; police said there were no signs of robbery. Friends, admirers and customers gathered outside the store in shock. News 12 Brooklyn reported on August 3 that his family had said goodbye to him at his funeral. A reward of $12,000 was offered for information.
After the second killing, merchants in Bay Ridge and Bath Beach began taking extra precautions. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that both men had been born in Egypt, that Gebeli was a Muslim and Kadare an Orthodox Jew, and that both had been shot with the same gun. Police from the 68th and 62nd Precincts stepped up patrols, squad cars from other precincts appeared on almost every block, and officers walked the beat. A police sketch of a suspect was posted on poles along the shopping streets. Perrone later asked the court for a copy of a police wanted poster, circulated after Kadare's death, that described a white Hispanic male, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported in 2013.
Rahmatollah Vahidipour was 78 and lived in Great Neck, on Long Island. He had come to the United States from Iran. He ran a clothing boutique in Flatbush, in the area known as Prospect Lefferts Gardens. A clothing merchant across the street told the Associated Press that he was quiet and worked hard, and that he closed his store every Saturday to keep the Jewish Sabbath. A neighbor who had lived next door for four years called him "a very nice gentleman" and said he was at work early every morning.
He was shot and killed in his store on November 16, 2012. Police said the same gun had been used in all three killings, which had taken place within a radius of about five miles, the Associated Press reported. Rewards totaling $22,000 were offered. Great Neck Patch reported that it was the third killing in the Brooklyn area since July 6 in which the victim was a man of Middle Eastern descent.
None of the three stores had a surveillance camera, but cameras elsewhere had recorded a man carrying a duffel bag, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported. Police at first sought four people who might have witnessed the third killing, releasing images of them and saying that they were not thought to be involved. One of them, The Village Voice noted, was a man in an overcoat who had been seen carrying a duffel bag in the area around the time of the shooting. Police called him "John Doe Duffel Bag." Investigators then focused on him.
Police noted that each store's address contained the number 8, and one outlet called the unknown gunman the "Crazy 8" killer. Officials also considered whether the men had been targeted because of their Middle Eastern backgrounds. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said after the arrest that there was no motive he could speak of, and police said the killings had not been found to be bias crimes.
A day before the arrest, State Senator Marty Golden and Councilman David Greenfield announced a $40,000 reward. On November 20, Councilman Vincent Gentile met police officials to discuss the investigation.
A pharmacy worker in Bay Ridge, who knew Perrone as a customer, recognized him as the balding man in the footage leaving the area of the third killing, police said. According to Kelly, Perrone then went voluntarily to the 67th Precinct to be questioned. Detectives questioned him for almost 24 hours. He was charged with three counts of second-degree murder, and the District Attorney's Office gives November 21, 2012 as the date of his arrest. Kelly praised the person who recognized him, who did not want to be identified, for "vigilance" and "civic mindedness."
Police searched his girlfriend's apartment in Brooklyn, where they found the duffel bag. Inside it was a firearm that ballistics tests matched to shell casings from all three killings. Kelly said Perrone's fingerprint had been lifted from the weapon. Police listed other items in the bag, one of them apparently stained with blood, and said they believed he had carried the weapon in the bag and traveled by subway.
Another shopkeeper told police that Perrone had come into his store and asked whether he worked alone and what his hours were, Kelly said. "It's reasonable to assume he was going to keep doing this, and, by arresting him, we saved lives," Kelly told reporters. "We know he went to other locations and indicated he may have been planning to come back."
The reaction on the shopping streets was relief. A Bay Ridge dry cleaner who had been visited by Perrone said, "We were frightened all this time until they get him." A shoe store owner said local merchants had been extra careful for months. A woman who had known Perrone for seven years told CBS New York she was shocked, and a store owner said he would never have believed Perrone would do it, "in a million years." Gebeli's son said he recognized Perrone at once in the police video, and asked why he had done it.
At his first appearance in Brooklyn criminal court, Perrone was held without bail. The lawyer who stood in for him at that hearing, Ken Jones, told the Associated Press that Perrone denied killing anyone, that he showed no remorse, and that he appeared "as though he could have some mental-health issues." State Senator Golden said he hoped the families of the victims would find "peace and healing," and Councilman Gentile praised the police for stopping Perrone "before he tried to kill again."
On November 27, 2012, a Brooklyn grand jury indicted him. District Attorney Charles J. Hynes announced six murder counts: three of murder in the first degree, charged on the basis that he had killed three people in a similar manner within two years, and three of murder in the second degree. Weapon possession counts were also reported. First-degree murder carried a maximum sentence of life without parole, and second-degree murder a maximum of 25 years to life on each count, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported.
He was arraigned on the indictment in December 2012 and pleaded not guilty. He interrupted the hearing repeatedly. "Excuse me your honor. Can I say something?" he asked, and he demanded to see his own lawyer rather than the one the court had appointed. He said his money, his cell phone and his phone numbers had been taken from him, and that he had "not been given any access to the outside world." He asked to see his sister; when the judge asked whether she was in court, he turned and stared at the spectators for several minutes, and relatives of the victims stared back. "I would describe him as a person who has issues," said his court-appointed lawyer, William Martin. After the hearing Gebeli's son said, "I wanted to reach him. I wanted to get my hands on him." The judge ordered a psychiatric examination.
After the examination Perrone was found mentally fit to stand trial, The Brooklyn Ink reported. In July 2013 he told Justice Alan Marrus of Brooklyn Supreme Court that he wanted to represent himself. Marrus allowed it and let him dismiss Martin, while warning him that he seemed very confused about the role of a lawyer, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported. Martin said later that the government appeared to have a solid case. A lawyer, Howard Kirsch, was assigned to advise Perrone, and Kirsch told The Brooklyn Ink that Perrone had "no idea what he's doing."
Perrone said cell phone and surveillance records would show he had been nowhere near the stores. At an appearance in April 2013 he said subway station footage on the Q line would show him leaving a station at the time Vahidipour was found; Kirsch told the court that the transit authority had written that those stations had no cameras, and Marrus asked him to find out whether there had been cameras on that date.
At a hearing on September 27, 2013, Assistant District Attorney Melissa Carvajal handed over crime scene paperwork and photographs, seven surveillance videos, phone records, a laboratory report from the first killing and tips from that case that had led nowhere. She said prosecutors were still reviewing most of the video and were waiting for a DNA report on the firearm. Perrone complained that his phone company had given him 40 pages of numbers without the locations of cell towers, and later 43 more pages, still without them. "I need cell tower locations to prove where I was," he said. "I have 20 phone calls spread over three incidents." He asked for subpoenas for the phone records of witnesses at all three scenes. Marrus refused to sign anything without names. "In law, what you are doing is called a fishing expedition," he told him. Perrone also asked for Kadare's autopsy report, the wanted poster and the name of the police sketch artist, which Marrus said the prosecution would provide without subpoenas. The judge arranged for him to view the material at the Brooklyn House of Detention and said trial materials were unlikely to be ready by the end of the year.
District Attorney Ken Thompson later said Perrone had spent years acting up in court to delay his sentence.
Carvajal, of the Homicide Bureau, tried the case under the supervision of the bureau chief, Kenneth Taub. The prosecution's evidence was largely forensic. Ballistic analysis showed that casings from all three scenes came from a firearm registered to Perrone, and testimony showed that his fingerprints and DNA were recovered from it, the District Attorney's Office said. The bag was found in a search of his girlfriend's home. An item in it carried blood that matched Kadare's, and the bag itself had bloodstains that matched Vahidipour's. Cell phone data and surveillance videos placed Perrone near the second and third killings. A police detective testified about the contents of the bag, the Associated Press reported. JTA reported that he had also made statements implicating himself.
On February 10, 2016, the jury convicted Perrone, then 67, of three counts of murder in the second degree. "A mountain of evidence connected this serial killer to these murders," Thompson said, "which took the lives of three decent, honest and hard-working business owners who all left behind devastated families." He said Brooklyn would be safer with Perrone in prison for the rest of his life.
Perrone was sentenced on March 4, 2016. Before the sentence he read a prepared statement, which CBS New York described as a manifesto, saying he had not had a fair trial and that a business associate had framed him. "Absolutely no one appeared in this courtroom for my defense at the trial," he said. He also offered "my sincerest condolences to the families of the victims."
Kadare's sister spoke for her family. "May this animal rot and suffer in jail for the rest of his life," she said, as reported by CBS New York.
"Everyone knows what I'm going to give you because that's what you deserve, the maximum sentence the law allows," Marrus told Perrone. He imposed 25 years to life on each count, to run consecutively, for a total of 75 years to life. He told Perrone that he was lucky New York had no death penalty, because he would have been a prime candidate for it.
Thompson called Perrone a "cold-blooded and unrepentant serial killer." "It's hard to think of anyone who deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison more," he said, and he hoped the sentence would bring some comfort to the families, "who have suffered so much loss and grief."
For the merchants of Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst and Flatbush, the months between July and November 2012 were remembered as a time of fear. "It was a really scary time for small business owners," the chair of the local community board's police and public safety committee told The Brooklyn Ink. A pharmacy worker who had served Perrone said, "After him, I don't trust my own father." A board member of the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge said he prayed for Perrone and held no ill will toward him. "He's a victim like his victims," he said.
Gebeli's son kept his father's store open, as he told WABC-TV, despite the lost business and the bills. Kadare's family said goodbye to him at his funeral in August 2012. Vahidipour's neighbors remembered a quiet, hardworking man who kept the Sabbath.
Motive. No motive was reported by police or prosecutors. Police said there was no apparent dispute between Perrone and Gebeli and that he had gained nothing from the killing.
Bias. Because the victims were all men of Middle Eastern descent, investigators at first considered whether they had been targeted for their backgrounds. Police said the killings had not been found to be bias crimes, and he was not convicted of any hate crime. Accounts of the victims' faiths differ in one place: JTA's report on the sentence in March 2016 described Gebeli and Vahidipour as Jewish and Kadare as Muslim, while JTA's own 2012 reports and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described Gebeli as Muslim and Kadare as an Orthodox Jew.
The number 8. That each store's address contained the number 8 was listed by police among the features the killings shared and gave rise to a nickname; no motive connected to it was reported.
His denial. Perrone said at his sentencing that he was framed by a business associate and that phone and surveillance records would clear him. The jury rejected his account.
Dates and ages. The Associated Press gave the date of Kadare's death as August 6 in one 2012 report; the District Attorney's Office, CBS New York and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle give August 2. Reports at his arrest gave his age as 63, and reports of the indictment a week later gave it as 64; CBS New York reported that he would turn 64 on Thanksgiving Day 2012.
July 6, 2012: Mohamed Gebeli, 65, is shot dead in his clothing store in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
July 27, 2012: Gebeli's family returns to the store to call attention to the case.
August 2, 2012: Isaac Kadare, 59, is killed in his store in Bensonhurst; the medical examiner finds he was shot and stabbed.
August 2012: Kadare's funeral is held.
August 2012: patrols are increased in Bay Ridge and Bath Beach; a police sketch is posted.
November 16, 2012: Rahmatollah Vahidipour, 78, is shot dead in his boutique in Flatbush.
November 2012: police link the three killings to one gun and seek witnesses, including a man with a duffel bag.
November 21, 2012: after nearly 24 hours of questioning, Salvatore Perrone, 63, is arrested and charged.
November 2012: held without bail at his first court appearance.
November 27, 2012: indicted on three counts of first-degree and three counts of second-degree murder.
December 2012: pleads not guilty; a psychiatric examination is ordered.
2013: found fit to stand trial.
July 2013: allowed to represent himself, with a legal adviser.
September 27, 2013: discovery hearing on phone records and surveillance video.
February 10, 2016: convicted of three counts of murder in the second degree.
March 4, 2016: sentenced to 75 years to life.