The owner of a North Little Rock liquor store, which was the scene of a homicide months ago, told police Thursday night that someone had emptied the now-closed shop’s storage room.
According to a police report, an officer arrived at Best Shot Liquor, located at 5312 Macarthur Drive, a little before 10:50 p.m. The owner told the officer that his store had been closed for about a month and a half and that he’d last checked on it in late November.
When he looked in the back storage room Thursday, he told police he discovered the shelves empty of the miscellaneous liquor — about $7,000 worth — that was supposed to be there.
Police found that the chain-link fence between the storage room’s exterior door and the room had been cut, the report said. The storage room doesn’t have an alarm, and the outside-facing door was locked when police arrived.
The responding officer found a pair of small liquor bottles on the storage room floor and took a fingerprint from one of them, the report said.
The owner told police that he thinks a former employee, who has a key to the store, stole the liquor.
In August, Best Shot Liquor was the scene of a double shooting that resulted in the death of one of the store’s employees. Co-workers Dilipkumar Patel, 65, and Niranjana Modi, 64, were both shot Aug. 26, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette previously reported. Patel died Sept. 6 from his injuries.
North Little Rock police arrested 25-year-old Shanique Finley in Patel’s death Nov. 11. She was charged with capital murder.
