Man charged in St. Louis-area store killing, 27 years later

ARNOLD, Mo. -- Twenty-seven years after the owner of a suburban St. Louis liquor store was killed, police believe they've finally solved the case.

Loril Harp, 68, now the resident of a St. Louis nursing home, is charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the 1993 killing of 40-year-old Steven Weltig at the victim's store in Arnold, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Police said Harp admitted that in the 1980s and 1990s he pistol-whipped and beat with a hammer people who owed money. Charging documents said Harp did not admit to the killing but told police he was at the Ajax liquor store with the intention of "roughing up" Weltig on April 23, 1993.

Harp told investigators he went to the store to confront Weltig as payback from a previous shooting in which Harp believed Weltig was the gunman, police said.

Harp said a fight broke out and a gun went off, police said. But investigators concluded Weltig was on his knees when he was shot in the back of the head with his own handgun.

"That day Harp premeditated this encounter with the victim and regardless if Harp intended to shoot the victim or not, the end result was that the victim was violently murdered with his own firearm in his own business," a detective wrote in Harp's probable-cause statement.

Harp previously served time in prison for unlawful use of a weapon, burglary and stealing. He is jailed without bond and doesn't have a listed attorney who could comment on his behalf.