CHARLOTTE — It’s been 20 years since a convenience store manager was murdered in east Charlotte. However, the case remains unsolved.
Channel 9′s Glenn Counts spoke with police officers who have been working to bring attention to this crime, which started as a robbery and within seconds turned into a murder.
Mehretab Woldeghebriel immigrated from Egypt to America for a better life. But that dream would end up costing him everything.
Woldeghebriel owned and operated the Midtown Food Mart on Shamrock Drive.
Just past midnight, on Jan. 2, 2005, an armed man walked into his store with a shotgun to rob the place, according to police.
“Something occurred that caused that suspect to fire his weapon; he fired his shotgun, essentially shooting the owner of the business in the face, and the owner of the business immediately dropped,” said Matt Hefner, with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s Cold Case Unit.
Woldeghebriel would only survive for 18 days but never regained consciousness. If he recognized the person who took his life, he was never able to talk about it.
A security camera captured the suspect, but the footage was poor quality. They were never captured by police.
“There were quite a few people walking around or milling around. There were some other businesses nearby, so the area was kind of occupied with other pedestrians, and there were some other witnesses who saw this man before he did this,” Hefner said.
However, for the last 20 years, those potential witnesses have kept silent.
Police said the suspect also did not leave any fingerprints or DNA because he did not have to touch the door to open it.
“The mat on the concrete outside the door or the heat that was on prevented the door from closing,” Hefner explained.
And while there was another employee inside the store at the time of the incident, they told police that they were working behind the counter, squatting down, and never got a look at the suspect.
“That was it; it was a very quick incident. Five or six seconds is all the time the suspect was in the store, and he never completed the robbery and never got any goods from the store,” said Hefner.
With Woldeghebriel gone, his family tried to carry on his legacy, but his wife struggled to keep the store open. The property now belongs to someone else.
“This was the family income, so losing him was very difficult on the family,” Hefner said. “I’m a father, so what makes it sad for me is to know that he had young children at the time; they are adult children now, but they were raised without their father, and it was for senseless reasons.”
However, the family continues to hope that the person responsible will ultimately pay the price.
VIDEO: ‘Eats me up every day’: Family left without answers 16 years after woman killed
©2025 Cox Media Group
