New York: A Gujarati woman was reportedly shot in South Carolina in an attempted armed theft. The victim, Mradulaben Patel was the co-owner and clerk of a store at a gas station in Powdersville, reportedly succumbed to her injuries.
Police have issued an appeal for help in identifying the man who believed to have shot Mradulaben Patel in the face Thursday night.
According to reports, she died on Saturday after succumbing to her injuries.
Patel holds American and British citizenships.
Authorities said the video shows a man walking into the store and they said he bought a pack of cigars. Authorities are reviewing the surveillance footage that showed the suspect, moments before, asking for cigars and then shooting Patel without taking any money.
Investigators said they believe the man in the video shot Patel during an attempted robbery. A man named Michael Wheat saw Patel lying on the floor as he walked into the store late at night and called the police.
“I saw the clerk lying there on the floor, bleeding pretty bad,” said Wheat, adding that Patel had blood all over her head and on the floor.
Wheat said he left the store and got in his truck from where he called 911.
He said he ran back into the store without knowing whether or not the shooter had already left the scene of the incident.
“She was kinda moaning as she was breathing,” said Wheat.
Customers of the shop remembered Patel as a friendly woman.
“She always asked how everybody was, their day was, (and) she asked how my daughter was every day that I came in here,” Shalynn Zarczynski, a frequent customer of Patel’s, said.