DANVILLE, VA – The store is so close to my home—and so close to my heart... it’s scary," Airport Mart Exxon customer Marie Greenfield said.
A community hub once full of cars, chatter, and life, now empty, silent, and uncertain.
“At lunchtime, that gas station parking lot is packed,” Greenfield said.
Greenfield has stopped by the Airport Mart Exxon every other day for years.
“You build a relationship with people,” she said.
She always made time to speak with the owner, Pinakin Patel, and his wife.
“As my son has grown up, we go in there all the time. She’d ask, ‘How’s the baby? What’s he doing?’ That relationship bloomed into something I’d call friendship.”
The news of Patel’s death hit her—and the Danville community—hard.
A GoFundMe has already raised over $12,000
“Just the thought of his wife and children, to know they have to go the rest of their lives without their husband, without their father—broke my heart. I cried," Greenfield said.
Greenfield drove by the Exxon soon after.
“I saw the pink tape around it. The store looked so still. I about cried. I had to wipe tears from my eyes driving past. It’s hard—really hard—to see the shell of that store," she said.
Police quickly identified 21-year-old Jaelynn Lowen as the suspect, thanks to new license plate cameras recently installed across Danville.
“I didn’t even know we had them. I feel even more protected,” Greenfield said.
Some may feel the cameras invade privacy. Greenfield sees them as essential.
“Most of the time when something happens, you can’t read the license plate—it’s blurry, you’re like, ‘Ugh, what does that say?’ But that camera caught it—just like that. That’s why they’re there. That man took a life—and he will get caught," she said.
She has a message for Lowen:
“She’s going to be spending the rest of her life without him. And you—you will go to prison. And I hope you do. For a long, long time," Greenfield said.
