Killer gets 15-year sentence for 2020 shooting of Vancouver shop owner

Santana McElroy recalled Thursday how she sat on the sidewalk outside Main Street’s Dank Mart after getting the devastating news that the love of her life, Amin Shahin Shakur, had been shot to death behind his store an hour earlier.

At the time of the July 2020 slaying, McElroy didn’t know she was pregnant with their daughter.

Her voice broke as she told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Janet Winteringham how the little girl will only know her dad in photos.

“Our daughter doesn’t deserve to grow up without her dad,” she said at a sentencing hearing for his killer, Mohammad Abu-Sharife. “On top of raising a daughter alone and trying to play both roles as best as I can, I carry tremendous fear about our future. I worry about the effects that this trauma will have on her as she grows up.”

In December, Abu-Sharife, 43, pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He was originally charged with second-degree murder.