The Comics World shop had been Barb and Michael George’s just-go-for-it passion. He'd collected thousands of comics over the years and he liked superheroes' adventures way more than he liked selling insurance. So, with some help from Barb's parents, they took the jump and opened their little shop in a Clinton Township, Mich., strip mall in the winter of 1988.

Joe Kowynia is Barb's brother. These days he earns a living by removing dents and dings from cars, but back in 1990, he was the kid brother who looked up to his sister. He admired her on the ball field.

Joe Kowynia: I used to go to her games. I remember going to tournaments with the family. You know, she was your typical older sister. She was always there to help you.

Barb had been raised in a traditional Polish Catholic family and when she found her man -- Michael George -- marriage became the organizing principle of her life.

Dennis Murphy, Dateline NBC: Was she a happy bride?

Joe Kowynia: Very happy. Yeah. She couldn't wait.

And when children came along – two girls -- Barbara George seemed complete.

Joe Kowynia: Her kids were her pride and joy. I think that was everything to her.

But as brother Joe and his then-girlfriend Mary -- now Mary Shamo -- drove over to the comic shop on that Friday the 13th, both of them knew that after nine years, Barb and Michael’s marriage had hit more than a rough patch. It was on the skids. He'd talked divorce to a Catholic wife who wouldn't hear of it. Still it was supposed to be a night of celebration: a surprise birthday party in the store for Michael. He was turning 30.

But the festive decorations, cake and candles, could barely spackle over the cracks in the marriage.

Mary Shamo: She wanted to do whatever she could to save the marriage. And that's what this big birthday party was about.

Michael's mother was going to keep the two kids at her house for the weekend while Barb and Michael took off after the party for a cozy couple of days at a lodge.

Dennis Murphy: So that would've been a Friday night and it was going to be a romantic weekend?

Joe Kowynia: Right.

That weekend wouldn’t happen, because by the time Joe and Mary got to the comic book store just before 9 p.m., there was confusion. Cop cars.

Dennis Murphy: You come up cold and they got crime scene tape--

Joe Kowynia: Exactly.

Dennis Murphy: --strung around the store.

Joe Kowynia: And I didn't know what to make of it.

Mary Shamo: We pulled up and Joe rolled down the window, the police stopped us and they said, "You can't go through, we're investigating a homicide." Somebody was killed.

Joe Kowyni: I immediately thought Mike, because I thought no one hated my sister. Absolutely nobody.

But it wasn't Mike. It was his sister, the sister who'd loaned him money when he was short, fought his corner for him, now rendered in a moment to that police-talk word: the victim.

And it was up to detective Sgt. Donald Steckman to make sense of the senseless. He'd been the investigator on duty when the hospital called that they'd had a woman come in with a single gunshot to the head.

Sgt. Steckman: So now we had a full-blown homicide.

Dennis Murphy: You know it's going to be a long night?

Sgt. Steckman: Yes.

As the detective's team scoured the strip mall dumpsters for maybe a tossed weapon, clothing, or something, he turned over the few facts he had so far. A woman with children was gunned-down execution-style in the back of a little comic book store.

Police interviewed merchants and customers at the mall. Had anyone seen anything out of the ordinary?

It turned out Tom and Lenora Ward did. The couple who'd given Barb first aid had picked up on something when they arrived that evening: a speeding car in front of the comic book shop.

Lenora Ward: And we both thought to ourselves, and then said it to each other, "Boy, that car's going too fast.”

Later they'd wonder if that was the getaway car. Immediately, something else caught their eye: a man coming out of the closing shop door.

Tom Ward: Had on kind of a dark outfit for that time of the year. Greek fisherman's cap is how I would describe it.

The shop was small, deeper than it was wide, with aisles of bins filled with comic books out front by the register and a door to the back storage room. Barbara George had been found just inside the back room. On the far wall was a locked door that led to the alley in the rear.

Crime scene techs began videotaping the crime scene.

There was $750 still in the cash register untouched.

In a glass case just behind the till was a wall of collectable vintage comics -- the good stuff. They hadn't been ransacked.

In the storage area, some bins had been toppled over but the EMTs might have done that as they rushed in to assist Barb George as she lay on the floor.

More than $400 would be found in her pockets. The good jewelry she was wearing wasn't taken.

Later, the medical examiner determined that the shop owner had been shot from above, the bullet entering almost the very top of the skull, indicating she'd been crouching.

Another bullet had been fired first, police believe. It missed and went through a swimsuit calendar on the wall and into the empty shop on the other side of the sheetrock.

If it was a robbery at the comic book store, it was an unusual one.

Just after 8 p.m., Det. Steckman was told that the husband of the victim had just arrived. Michael George walked toward the police line.

Sgt. Steckman: He identified himself. And he said, “What's going on?” We said, “Well there's been an incident here and we're sorry to tell you, but your wife has been injured...”

Dennis Murphy: Injured?

Sgt. Steckman: I told him that...

Dennis Murphy: Not dead?

Sgt. Steckman: We never told him what, we never told him what happened to her.

Dennis Murphy: He doesn't know what has happened to his wife?

Sgt. Steckman: To our knowledge, he had no idea what was going on. And he never really asked, you know, “Is she seriously hurt?” or anything else. And when he started, I said, “Well you need to go over to the hospital because your wife is really seriously injured."

At the hospital, Michael George was informed that his wife had died of a gunshot wound to the head.

A few minutes later, Mary and his brother-in-law Joe came rushing in. The girlfriend was undone by the awful news.

Mary Shamo: I’m blown away. I'm shocked. I wasn't even related to her and I was devastated and I was crying and I was upset. Mike never once cried. He was never once showing remorse or a man in panic that, “Oh my God, my girls' mother is gone. What am I going to do? How am I going to raise Em without her?"

In the coming days, in unexpected places, other people would note his stoic demeanor, too, the tearless grieving they said behind dark sunglasses.

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