A federal grand jury has indicted 24-year-old Jordan Isaiah Pierce on charges connected to the killings of two 7-Eleven employees during a June 2022 armed robbery in Newport News, a case that sat unsolved for more than two years. Pierce is accused of shooting and killing both victims with a Draco pistol while stealing lottery tickets from the store on Kiln Creek Parkway, according to the indictment.
The victims were identified as 52-year-old Preyas Patel of Yorktown, who owned the 7-Eleven franchise, and 35-year-old Logan Edward Thomas of Newport News, an employee at the store, according to 13News Now. Police were first called to the store at approximately 11:46 p.m. on June 15, 2022, after a customer walked in, found no employees working the counter, and alerted authorities to the suspicious scene, the station reported. The store operated 24 hours a day, and the total absence of staff is what first tipped off the customer that something was wrong.
A Cold Case That Lingered for Years
7-Eleven Corporation put up a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, while Virginia Peninsula Crime Stoppers offered up to $1,500 for anonymous tips, according to a video posted by the Newport News Police Department. The corporate reward required tipsters to come forward with their identities, while Crime Stoppers' offer protected anonymity. Together, the rewards totaled $11,500.
By March 2025, investigators were still appealing to the public, releasing surveillance video from the night of the robbery showing a suspect in a hoodie and face mask entering the store roughly 10 minutes before officers were dispatched, per the same police department video. The heavy covering made early visual identification difficult, and the case remained cold through most of 2025 and into this year.
Federal Charges Filed in Eastern District of Virginia
According to WAVY.com, the superseding indictment charges Pierce with two counts of using a firearm in a crime of violence resulting in death, along with conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery, interference with commerce by robbery, and using a firearm in a crime of violence. Federal prosecutors allege that less than a month after the fatal June 15 robbery, Pierce and a co-conspirator robbed another Newport News convenience store for cash on July 11, 2022, using the same Draco pistol, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The case is being prosecuted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia under Case No. 4:26-cr-70, led by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lisa R. McKeel, Brian J. Samuels, and Mack Coleman, per the DOJ. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Theophani K. Stamos, FBI Richmond Field Office Special Agent in Charge Ian Kaufmann, and Newport News Police Chief Steve R. Drew jointly announced the federal indictment, reflecting coordination between local and federal law enforcement on the Hampton Roads case.
Why the Case Went Federal
Federal prosecutors are able to bring charges over what began as a local convenience store robbery because the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, allows federal jurisdiction when a robbery obstructs or affects interstate commerce — including the sale of out-of-state lottery tickets and retail merchandise, as the DOJ has explained in similar cases. That legal mechanism is what elevated a Newport News store robbery into a federal matter with far steeper potential consequences.
Conviction on the counts of using a firearm in a crime of violence resulting in death carries potential statutory penalties of up to life imprisonment or the death penalty under federal law, according to the DOJ. Newport News is also one of several Hampton Roads municipalities, alongside Norfolk, Hampton, Portsmouth, and Chesapeake, participating in Operation Ceasefire, a multi-agency state and local initiative targeting violent crime and gun violence across eastern Virginia, as Hoodline has reported.
