Ballistics tests indicate the gun used to kill a 78-year-old Brooklyn store owner Friday was the same gun that killed two Brooklyn store owners last summer, officials said.
Rahmatollah Vahidipour was found dead after he was shot in the head and torso inside his Flatbush boutique, She She. Police said he was shot shortly after 7 p.m.
Richard Vinson, 63, who has lived next door to the boutique for four years, called Vahidipour "a very nice gentleman."
"He was a hardworking man; he'd open the store early in the morning and he'd still be there until 7:30, 8 o'clock in the evening," Vinson told reporters.
The .22-caliber shell casings recovered at the crime scenes were a positive match to those recovered at two other crime scenes this past summer.
In August, two customers discovered the body of 59-year-old Isaac Kadare in an aisle at his Amazing 99 cents Deals shop on 86th Street in Bensonhurst.
On July 6, the body of 65-year-old Mohamed Gebeli was found by friends, with a gunshot wound to the his neck, inside Valentino Fashion on Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
There have been no arrests in any of the murders, which happened in a 5-mile radius. Police say they don't know the motive behind any of the killings.
Authorities are offering rewards of $22,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the three homicides.
