Store employee killed during argument over pizza order, investigators say

MILWAUKEE (WISN) – A man faces decades in prison for allegedly killing a store employee in Wisconsin over a pizza.

The suspect is being held on a $200,000 bond in the Milwaukee County Jail.

Through the doors of the corner store on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Walking Drive and Keefe Avenue will never be the same for Mohammad Owais; he is back at work after someone shot and killed his brother, who was also a young father.

“I said to my brother, ‘Please, I need help, for an hour, an hour and a half.’ He said to me, ‘I have you,'” Mohammad Owais recalled.

The store owner says Charles Leggett ordered a pizza at that time.

“My brother served him and gave him the ticket. He went to that guy to make him the pizza. He gave him the card. I don’t think the guy was wearing gloves or anything,” Mohammad Owais said.

The employee who made the pizza is afraid to be identified, but he says he is “pretty sure” he was not wearing gloves at the time.

“He went back to the front and got into an argument with the cashier at the front, and they shouted a few words at each other,” Mohammad Owais described. “And then I just hear a bang.”

Prosecutors say the store’s surveillance video shows an argument at the counter, after which the shooter abruptly “puts the gun to Owais’ chest.” He shot and killed 26-year-old Jamil Owais.

“He shot him in the heart here and he died soon,” said Mohammad Owais.

Jamil Owais, 26, was shot and killed during an apparent argument.

Jamil Owais, a Palestinian immigrant, came to the US in 2013, leaving behind a wife and an infant daughter.

“It’s a big loss. He’s a good guy. He is like my son when he came,” said Mohammad Owais. ‘He was a little boy. He grew up with me. That’s why this thing hurts me too much.”

If convicted, Leggett faces up to 75 years in prison.