Life a daily struggle for Durham restaurant owner year after husband killed in robbery

A year has passed since a Durham restaurateur was gunned down in his driveway in an attempted robbery, but his widow says her pain is fresh every day.

Posted 12:42 a.m. Apr 17, 2019 — Updated 12:42 a.m. Apr 17, 2019

Sarah Krueger

, WRAL reporter

DURHAM, N.C. — A year has passed since a Durham restaurateur was gunned down in his driveway in an attempted robbery, but his widow says her pain is fresh every day.

Hong Zheng and his wife, Shirley Chan, had returned home after closing their Chinese restaurant on April 15, 2018, when they were ambushed by men outside their home in the 4600 block of Carlton Crossing Drive.

Zheng was killed in his car, and Chan was grazed by bullets. Still, she was able to return fire with a gun the family keeps on hand to fend off robbery attempts.

"I try to be standing for both of my kids, but really, inside my body, I don’t have no feeling," Chan said Tuesday at the China Wok restaurant in south Durham, which she now runs by herself.

"Every day, when I use a key to open the front door, when I step in, by that time, all the memory coming up to me," she said, adding that she keeps the restaurant going because she and her husband built the business for 16 years before he was killed.

Maurice Owen Wiley Jr., 29, Hykeem Deshun Cox, 22, Darryl Bradford, 19, Semaj Maleek Bradley, 19, and Charles Winfor Daniels, 19, all of Durham, have been charged in Zheng's death.

The Durham County District Attorney's Office said the cases against the five men have been moved to federal court, but no one at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of North Carolina responded Tuesday to a request for comment on the status of the cases.

Chan said the FBI recently asked to speak with her about the case, and she will be meeting with agents next week.

She said she hopes all five spend the rest of their lives in prison.

"The evil need to pay for what they’ve done to my family," she said. "If they come out, more [crimes will occur], more families destroyed, more people get hurt."

Chan said she and her two children moved after Zheng's death because the memories were too painful in their old home.

"Right now, I feel nowhere is safe," she said.

She thanked the Durham community, noting that many people donated money to her family after her husband was killed. She handed the money over to the Carolina Chinese American Civic Center, which establish a "Hong Zheng Memorial Fund" to provide emergency financial assistance to anyone in need.

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