Just hours before Upper East Side bodega worker Sueng Chul Choi was pistol whipped and shot to death during a robbery last week, one of his regular customers noticed that he seemed kind of sad.
“I bought my items and I looked at him,” said Helen Rambert, 67, a regular at Daona Deli and Grocery on E. 81st St. and Third Ave. “I just kept looking at him and I said, ‘He doesn’t look like he’s happy.’”
Choi, 67, a divorced deli worker, had long been estranged from his ex-wife and children, who lived a thousand miles away in Chicago. March 3, the day he was killed, also happened to be his son’s 40th birthday. And his daughter died of a heart attack last year.
“We normally talk to each other,” Rambert said, “and he didn’t seem to be happy.”
His day only got worse from there.
Cops said an armed customer in a hooded hazmat suit strolled in shortly before 7:30 p.m., ordered a customer to the floor and attacked Choi behind the counter, pistol whipping him until the gun went off.
Cops responding to a 911 call said the victim died of a gunshot wound to his head.
Choi’s friends and relatives said the hard-working deli clerk had been worried about the dangers of the late-night hours.
“He knows it’s a dangerous place to work,” said Choi’s ex-wife Jenny Chon 66. “I think he’s a kind guy who doesn’t change anything. I don’t talk to him much, but every time I talk to him on the phone, maybe once a year, he tells me it’s dangerous.”
Chon, who had been divorced from Choi for 30 years, said she last saw the victim about four years ago, when his 92-year-old father died in Chicago. That’s where much of his family lives.
Choi’s 37-year-old daughter died March 1, 2022 of a heart attack, almost a year to the day that Choi was killed.
Choi is survived by a sister and three brothers. Two of the brothers are still in South Korea, where Choi was born.
Chon said Choi moved to Chicago from Seoul in 1978, and they were married two years later. Choi studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before taking more classes in Chicago. They divorced in 1991 and he went back to South Korea for a while, she said.
“He is an accountant,” Chon said. “He has a degree in accounting. He’s a CPA. He has a lot of education. He graduated from the university in Korea and then came back here and went to college here.”
Choi stayed in South Korea for a few years and came back to the U.S., this time settling in New York.
“He’s been in New York so many years,” Choi’s sister Amy Hahn, 73, said from her home in Chicago. “Last time I saw him was at my father’s funeral a few years ago.”
Hahn said she couldn’t believe what happened.
“This is unreal. Oh, my goodness,” she said. “He always is sweet to everyone. He was very good to the family, but he lived far.”
Choi’s landlord, Il Nam Bak, 74, said he got the news about Choi’s death from detectives.
“We were very surprised,” Bak said. “We had a good relationship, he was a very nice guy.”