BRIDGETON — Playing terrible odds was a big part of Jamshaid Khan’s life, but he’d had enough success to believe.
In 2001, running a small corner store in Hyderabad, Pakistan, he won the green card lottery. He moved to the ºüÀêÊÓƵ region and became a U.S. citizen. He worked the past 17 years as a cashier at a Bridgeton Phillips 66 that sells a lot of lottery tickets.
The gas station, 12218 St. Charles Rock Road, is known in the area for selling a $1 million Powerball ticket last August. Khan, visiting family at the time overseas, was blown away by the news. Though he typically saw people lose from the other side of the counter, Khan had a personal devotion to Pick Three.
“He used to talk about the lottery all the time,†said Mohammad Khan, 32, a friend with the same last name. “I used to tell him you already won one lottery.â€
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Regardless, his luck ran out on Feb. 16, 2023.
After his shift, he was walking out of work around 11 p.m., when a man came out of the night and struck him so hard in the head that either the punch or fall knocked him unconscious. The assailant took Khan’s keys and drove off in his silver 2018 Toyota Corolla.
As Khan lay in the parking lot, somebody came up and performed CPR before he was taken just a few blocks away to DePaul Hospital. He was put on life support.
Officials described the incident as a random attack on an innocent victim.
“Totally out of the blue,†said Bridgeton police Capt. Dennis Fitzgerald.
He said video surveillance showed no previous interactions between the two men in the parking lot, nor during Khan’s shift. He said other video footage showed the assailant leaving DePaul Hospital before he ended up lurking at the gas station.
A few days after the attack, Michael A. Betton Jr., 37, was picked up by Richmond Heights police. He’d allegedly walked into a New Balance store, tried on a pair of sneakers and fled without paying. Khan’s missing Toyota was also recovered in the area, in good shape. Betton was charged with one count of vehicle hijacking, serious physical injury, and taken to the ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Justice Center, where he remains.
A different person
Betton’s luck seemed to have run out, too. Khan never improved. He died at the hospital on Feb. 27. Charges against Betton were amended to include second-degree murder.
“The biggest problem we have in our current society is that nobody has any respect for life other than their own,†said James Reynolds, manager of a stereo business next to the Phillips 66. “He basically got killed because somebody wanted to steal his car. I am sure the death was accidental, but the attack was not.â€
Betton’s public defender, Brandon Hill, couldn’t be reached for comment. On Sunday, his sister, Amber Betton, said she’d heard her brother was accused of carjacking someone and being held in isolation in jail, but she wasn’t aware of the victim’s death. Khan’s case hasn’t been broadly publicized.
Amber Betton said her brother used to stay with her and her family in Ferguson until he became too unstable and scary. She said he was homeless.
“I loved my brother,†she said. “It came to the point I couldn’t trust him. I tried to get him help.â€
She said he was a 2005 graduate of McCluer North High School, where he was popular and played on the varsity basketball team. She said he has children, was previously married and worked a lot of different jobs, typically at warehouses, factories or as a custodian.
She said his demeanor changed starting around 2017. At one point, she said, he wanted to be a pastor. At another, he survived a park shooting and seemed to be unraveling from untreated mental illness. She said other family members also tried to help him but became concerned for their own safety.
“He is not the same person,†she said. “He would not do these things had he been medicated.â€
Mental health experts say criminal trespassing cases are often red flags for broader challenges. Between April and August 2022, Michael Betton racked up seven such cases, as well as additional allegations of stealing, from the QuikTrip at 11150 St. Charles Rock Road in St. Ann, according to court records.
“He’s been told numerous times that he’s not allowed,†an officer wrote in a report, adding that Betton posed a danger to employees for his “hostilities.â€
Clayton police cited Betton twice for allegedly trespassing in the 6800 block of Wydown Boulevard on Feb. 1, 2023, and Feb. 14, 2023. At some point after that, he apparently ended up at DePaul Hospital.
Bridgeton police say footage shows Betton leaving the hospital on Feb. 16, 2023, before the fatal attack. People who work in the area said it’s common to see former hospital patients in the area, some in their gowns.
Jennifer Wiegert, spokeswoman for DePaul Hospital, wouldn’t comment about Betton or if the hospital had received any complaints about people released in the area.
“When patients are discharged from our emergency room, our staff assist patients in need with providing transportation options,†she said by email. “There are patients that do, at times, leave against medical advice. We provide our clinicians with ongoing education, guidance, and training in these matters.â€
Khan’s widow
Typically a celebratory time for Ramadan, Khan’s widow, Saba Baig, is grieving the loss of her husband in a west ºüÀêÊÓƵ County condo near Creve Coeur that she shares with Khan’s mother.
Speaking in Urdu on Monday, Baig said through a translator that she and Khan married in 2018 in Pakistan. She moved here full time in September. She said her husband liked Superman and Bollywood movies and, of course, playing the lottery.
Khan won enough times to believe anything was possible. Apart from winning a fast track to becoming a U.S. citizen in 2001, she said he once won $5,000. He often told her he wanted to win big so he could buy her the house and car of her dreams. He also wanted to travel the world. She wanted to go to Mecca.
Meanwhile, Khan kept working six days a week at Phillips 66.
Based on how much he supported his family overseas, Baig said she was surprised her husband only made about $12.50 an hour. Though his shift ended late, around 11 p.m., they ate dinner together every night. The night of that attack, they were to have kabobs — Khan’s favorite. She grew worried when 11:30 p.m., then midnight rolled around and he wasn’t home.
Baig and Khan’s mother, Rafiqa Begum, struggled to believe that he’d left Pakistan so long ago to die in such a brutal manner in Bridgeton, Missouri.
“The gas station should have more security, more lights, more people to work there,†said Baig.
Representatives of Lion Petroleum Inc., which owns the station, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Friends and family had encouraged Khan to find a different job. But the pay was steady. He’d developed a routine that worked and was even a little fun sometimes.
His widow said Khan was so friendly with everyone that he felt shielded from the kind of violent attack that crossed his path outside the gas station.
“It was just the wrong minute,†she said.