The Murder of Master Do

As violence surged around the studio, Master Do took advantage of his success. In 2005, the family moved from North Miami to Davie, where they built a house worth a half-million dollars. In 2006, Do and Shin took a vacation to Paris — their first European trip together in 30-plus years of marriage. And the family planned to open a larger studio in North Miami Beach, though zoning issues delayed the project.

On the Saturday of his shooting, the master planned to wash the Cadillac — his fourth; he loved big American cars — while Ricky and Kathy taught the 11 a.m. class. Then he would play golf before driving to Orlando to assume presidency of the Florida chapter of the Korean-American Association, a group he had been involved with for years.

About 9 a.m. he went to Rapid Oil Change on West Dixie Highway and then stopped by the studio to read the newspaper and chat with Ricky and Kathy. He called Leclerc Prosper, a young-looking 62-year-old Haitian-American with smooth skin and wide brown eyes. "Can you come wash my car?" he asked. Prosper agreed to meet him at noon in the parking lot.

Prosper parked his yellow van in the studio's back lot. He could hear students practicing inside, yelling "Kee-ya" as they kicked heavy bags. Do arrived a few minutes later. A pressure washer was fired up, and Prosper soaped up the black Cadillac while Do cleaned the interior.

The two were friends. "Okay, take a break now," Prosper joked to Do after just a few minutes of work. Then he turned his attention to the left front tire.

Suddenly gunfire sounded. "I was scared," says Prosper, who speaks English with a thick Kreyol accent. "That's a gunshot. I didn't look. I just kept putting water on the tire. I didn't want the guy to see me."

But out of the corner of his eye, Prosper glimpsed the man in a white shirt and dark, baggy shorts. He was about 20 feet away, holding a long brown rifle in both hands. "I swear to the Lord, I didn't see his face," Prosper says. However, he did see Do lying on the ground near the Cadillac. The shooter took a couple of steps toward Prosper and aimed at his legs. One bullet barreled through his left calf, the other through his right.

Prosper lay on the ground, bleeding and in excruciating pain. He looked down and saw the exposed bone of his left shin; then he spotted the shooter running from the parking lot and toward a black Mercedes waiting at a nearby Farm Stores market. A religious man, he closed his eyes and prayed as the Mercedes peeled off. God give me life, he thought.

Patrol officers soon arrived, and one of them called Sgt. Peter Cruz — Do's longtime student and a North Miami police veteran — at home. Cruz, who is 47 years old and looks a bit like a tougher Russell Crowe, was preparing to attend a baptism with his family. "When I arrived at the studio, rescue had taken Master away to be airlifted to Jackson," Cruz says slowly. "I heard he had been shot several times. I should have known it was over, but I was in denial."

Sgt. Scott Croye, a North Miami Police homicide detective, went to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he spoke to Ricky and Prosper; they didn't know anything about the shooter. Then crime scene technicians found five shells at the scene. Later Croye spoke to employees at the shops nearby — a beauty salon, a Haitian notary, a cell phone store — but they claimed not to have seen or heard anything. Frustrated, Croye watched a surveillance video from the Farm Stores market. The camera had captured the Mercedes, but the license plate wasn't visible.

Over at Jackson, Do clung to life. Students gathered outside as surgeons operated. At one point, a doctor emerged to talk to Ricky. "He lost a lot of blood," the doctor said. "I don't know how he's still alive." As Sunday dawned, the family had some hope. Do was hooked up to a breathing machine and nodded his head when people spoke to him. The surgeons operated three more times, but on Monday his prognosis was even worse. Around noon, he was taken off the ventilator, and the family prepared to watch him die. But Do lived for five more hours — long enough for nearly 600 students to pass his bed and say goodbye.

Ricky watched his father take his final breath. "I reassured him that everything was going to be okay," he recalls.

When the heart monitor flat-lined, Ricky walked out of the room and down the hospital corridor. Tears welled in his eyes. This is not for real, he thought. It's a bad dream.