WEBSTER -- An act of robbery is generally defined by what's been taken. 

11 News

Vu and her husband would be celebrating eight years of marriage.

But the one that occurred at NASA Liquor Store in Webster on Saturday night did more than empty a store's cash register. The robber took the life of a husband and a father.

The victim’s wife, Phuong Vu, knew something was wrong when a police officer called her late Saturday.

"All I know is they told me that he got shot in the chest and he passed away," said Vu. "They asked me to come to the store because it was robbed.”

It did not take long for her to find out that the love of her life, Thanh Pham, had been killed.

"I told the police that it can’t be true.  It couldn’t be real, because he has a wife and children that he needed to take care of," said Vu.

Pham, by every account, was a man devoted to his family. He worked 12 hours a day, six days a week.

But he was also guided by faith. He attended services at Vietnamese Martyrs Catholic Church every Sunday, and he grieved when a relative and other church-goers were killed when the bus they were in crashed over the summer near Dallas.

On Sunday, parishioners grieved for him.

Pham leaves behind a 3-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter. The two of them used to wait up for him at night. But last night, after Pham was shot, they kept waiting.

"They asked me when Daddy was going to come home. I told them that he wasn’t coming home, and she said asked me if it was forever.  Somehow, she knew," said Vu.

If someone had not robbed store and killed Pham, he and Vu would have celebrated their 8th wedding anniversary, one month from Sunday.