CLEMMONS, N.C. — In a crime that sent shockwaves across the Triad – a Clemmons convenience store clerk was tied up by criminals and left to die inside a burning building back in October 2018. He was luckily able to escape.
Now, nearly two years later, the Stop and Save Mart on Styers Ferry Road is reopening this weekend, with a brand new building. Owner Raj Singh said it's been a difficult process.
"It was very, very tough to come back, but I hope the community will be proud of us – how we have rebuilt and how we have come back, even though it took us time."
Singh still reflects back on the horrific events inside his store - and thinks back in awe of his clerk, David Slater, who soon plans to return to work at the store.
"I thought many times – it could've been me, and I try to put myself in that place...I thought that I would not have made it out alive as he did," he said, "He was working that night, it was his first day back from his cancer treatments. (Slater) was about to close our store, and then those guys walked in and put a gun on him and told him what to do, what not to do."
The criminals zip-tied the clerk, doused the building in diesel fuel, and lit on fire.
WFMY News 2 spoke with Slater last year.
"Fire was everywhere. I told God, I wasn't going to die today. Not today. And he gave me strength," he said in September 2019.
About two weeks after the Oct. 20 robbery and arson, authorities arrested and charged two men with the crime, according to the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office.
In June 2020, David Curtis Smith, 59, pleaded guilty to Hobbs Act robbery, carjacking, use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime, violence and arson after robbing the Stop and Save Mart. He was sentenced to more than 25 years in prison.
