Man found guilty of killing beloved Charlotte store owner. Judge renders stiff sentence
A 28-year-old man was found guilty of first-degree murder Friday and sentenced to life in prison without parole in the 2017 fatal shooting of beloved Charlotte store owner Massaquoi Kotay, prosecutors said.
The 45-year-old Kotay was a Liberian immigrant who owned Northend Convenience Store on North Tryon Street, according to a news release by the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office Friday.
The store sold imported African food and was popular with Charlotte’s Liberian community, The Charlotte Observer previously reported. Since the killing six years ago, the Observer and other Charlotte media outlets have reported the name of the store as Mina African Market, but DA spokeswoman Meghan Cooke McDonald told the Observer the shooting happened at Northend Convenience Store.
Kotay was working in the store in January 2017 when, according to prosecutors, Shalome Scott and Desmond Black entered together and Scott shot Kotay. Kotay died while running for help to a neighboring store, prosecutors said.
In a trial that began May 15, a Mecklenburg County Superior Court jury also found Scott guilty of possession of a firearm by a felon.
In July 2017, Black pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon. Previous murder and robbery charges against him were dropped. Under the plea agreement with prosecutors, Black was sentenced to 30 months of probation and ordered to wear an ankle monitor for six months and earn a GED.
At Black’s sentencing, Esther Kotay told the judge that her husband “was a lovely man.”
“He came to America to open a small business,” she said, her tribute interrupted by sobs. “We were so excited.”
She and two dozen others in the courtroom had pushed for a much stiffer sentence against Black, the Observer reported at the time.
She said her husband was killed over money he gladly would have given away.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story gave a wrong name of the store where the Mecklenburg County district attorney, in a news release Friday, said the shooting occurred.
This story was originally published June 3, 2023 at 9:19 AM.