Customer is charged in slaying of beloved store owner

Residents saw Jongyoun Kim's husband come to Andy's Food Market yesterday morning to take home the couple's cat, who lived at the East Mount Airy store.

They worried that his pain would be too great for him to reopen the place, after his beloved wife was fatally shot - allegedly during a bizarre struggle with a regular customer - on Saturday, but they prayed that he would.

"I hope the family will open the store back up on the strength of Ms. Kim's memory," said a customer.

Last night, a relative confirmed that the owner, widower Chong Chin Kim, 70, plans to reopen the market, despite his grief.

"He can't afford not to [reopen,]" said his brother-in-law Ben Choi, 54, who drove from Atlanta with his wife, Chong Choi, 54, one of the victim's five sisters, after learning of the tragedy.

"We were so shocked," said Ben Choi, his eyes red from tears, as his wife stood nearby weeping.

Ben Choi said he and Kim had visited the market, but Kim "could not go in the store. He just had to sit at the store outside for two, three hours."

For the regulars, who came to grieve, the hardest part about her death was learning who is accused of taking her life.

"I was so hurt because a local did it, because it was someone she knew," said Amber Adams, who knew both the victim and her alleged killer.

Police said that Jongyoun Kim, 61, was gunned down next to the convenience store at 12:49 p.m. Saturday by Nicole Dolby-Becham, 27, who lived two blocks away.

Adams said that Dolby-Becham had previously been banned from the store on Chew Avenue near Phil-Ellena Street for stealing but that "Ms. Kim was so nice" she eventually allowed her to return.

Customer Trina Brown said her 11-year-old daughter was in the store at the time of the shooting.

She said that Dolby-Becham had opened a bag of chips from the store and had walked out without paying for it, and that Kim followed her outside with a gun.

Brown said that Dolby-Becham hit Kim and knocked her to the ground. She then took the gun, stood over her, and opened fire "execution style," Brown said.

"My daughter is traumatized," Brown said. "She won't go to a store by herself anymore. She can't even sleep alone."

Police could not confirm if the gun belonged to Kim or to Dolby-Becham. A police source said authorities are viewing surveillance video to try to determine that.

The source said that Dolby-Becham called police herself from a pay phone outside of the store and that she was arrested around the corner, about a half block from the scene.

Kim, who according to residents and initial police reports, was shot multiple times in the face, was pronounced dead at the scene at 1 p.m.

Dolby-Becham, of Musgrave Street near East Phil-Ellena, has been charged with murder, robbery and related offenses, police said.

Several neighborhood residents said that Dolby-Becham struggles with mental illness.

Adams, who said that Dolby-Becham regularly does her hair, had walked past her porch minutes before the shooting and made a hair appointment with her for later that day.

Adams said it was unusual for Kim to follow someone out of the store.

"That's the first time anyone seen her come from behind the counter except when she went to church," Adams said.

In fact, Kim had often asked Adams to attend church with her. Others said she always asked about their health or their children or just their happiness.

Shortly after the couple emigrated from Seoul, Korea, in the early 1970s, they joined the Korean United Church of Philadelphia, on West Cheltenham Avenue and 12th Street.

They were devout members for more than three decades, said a church elder, Peter Paik, who visited the grieving family with his wife yesterday.

Like many immigrants, they came to America to build a life together and raise a family. They had a strong work ethic and a close-knit family, staying in touch with relatives in Korea and in the U.S.

"She was a really caring person, a good cook," said the victim's sister, Chong Choi, a nurse. "Very lady-like," added her husband.

"She sacrificed her whole life to raise her children and educate them, and some criminal took her away," said Ben Choi, who saw violence in Philadelphia firsthand when he worked here from 1981 through 1996.

The Kim children made their parents proud. Their daughter, now 35, became a lawyer, and their son, now 34, is a chef in New York City. Neither wanted their names published.

But now, said their aunt, "The kids are really hurting."

"We were family to Ms. Kim," Brown said. "We may not have come from the same place [Korea] she came from, but she was family to our community."

Customers said Kim had beaten breast cancer several years ago and had recently bought a new car.

Bill Mils said Kim would let him pay her back on another day whenever he was short on cash.

"I thought that she did that only for me, but yesterday as I'm listening to all of the stories people told, I realized she did it for everybody."

"This was our store, not just their store," said Mils. "For every teddy bear out here at this memorial there is a Ms. Kim story."

A viewing will be from 6 to 9 p.m. tomorrow at George Washington Memorial Park on Stenton Avenue and Butler Pike, Plymouth Meeting. A service will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday, also at the memorial park, followed by interment. *