By Jonathan Bullington and Dan Hinkel, Chicago Tribune reporters
11:57 p.m. CST, December 20, 2013

Farheen Hakeem said her family wanted an arrest. They wanted a trial. They wanted to see the evidence and hear the reasons that someone would kill her two brothers.
She and other family members got some small part of that Friday.
That's when Evanston police said they found evidence that tied Kevin Ross, 29, a suspect in several bank robberies who was shot and killed by police Monday, to the mysterious July 30 double homicide of the Hakeem brothers.
 
Azim Hakeem, 38, and Mobeen Hakeem, 34, were found fatally shot in the basement of their family-owned tobacco store, Evanston Pipe and Tobacco. Their deaths tore apart a tightknit family that had considered the tobacco shop a second home since patriarch Abdul Hazeem bought it in 1982.
"Every Saturday in middle school and high school, (Azim) and I would hang around the store," said Farheen Hakeem, 38. "Mobeen was into Saturday cartoons."
When Abdul Hazeem's health started to fail, the brothers took over running the shop. Mobeen, who had autism, particularly loved his new role, his sister said.
Friends would often stop in to say hello.
When high school friend Dwayne Logan told Azim Hakeem about a death in Logan's family, he said he received kind words — and a cigar — from his friend.
"I still have the cigar he gave me," Logan said. "I just thought he was a great person."
The tobacco shop has remained closed since the brothers' deaths and is for sale. With Abdul Hazeem's health in decline, the family isn't able to keep it open, the brothers' uncle Qudrat Syed said.
"My sister, she is grieving so badly," Syed said. "She said, 'I lost my kids. I lost my world.'"
Friday's announcement offered little solace, with some family members questioning the strength of law enforcement's case.
"This isn't a celebratory time for us at all," Farheen Hakeem said. "We're not going to have closure until we see real evidence."
In a storage locker used by Ross, who lived in Evanston, police found Mobeen Hakeem's identification and Azim Hakeem's Social Security card, Cmdr. Jay Parrott said. Police also discovered unusual .22-caliber rounds matching the type of shell casings found at the homicide scene, Parrott said. Officers learned that Ross bought a .22-caliber handgun at a gun shop the month before the killings, he said.
Police say those findings and other evidence from Ross' apartment building link him to the Hakeem killings, which remained unsolved for five months. Parrott said the motive is still unclear, though robbery is a possibility.
Ross is believed to have robbed four banks in Chicago and Evanston in the past four months. The fifth bank, a Chase branch at 901 Grove St. near Evanston police headquarters, would be his last.
Based on a bank teller's description of the robber, police stopped Ross outside Bennison's Bakery at Maple Avenue and Davis Street, steps from the tobacco shop.
When he refused orders to drop a 9 mm handgun he was carrying, officers opened fire and he died a short time later at a hospital, police said.
Along with the identification and Social Security cards, officers found a receipt in the locker for a cigar bought in May at the brothers' store, suggesting that Ross knew of the store and may have known the men, Parrott said.
Police also found an AK-74 rifle and, after tracing the gun to a Chicago-area shop, learned that Ross bought a .22-caliber semi-automatic pistol at the same store in June, Parrott said. That gun has not been found, but it is the kind police believe was used in the killings. Ross had a valid firearm owner's identification card, Parrott said.
The commander said investigators have no reason to believe anyone else was involved in the brothers' deaths. The front door was padlocked at the time the slayings were discovered, and it's possible the victims knew their killer, Parrott said.
Ross' neighbors in south Evanston, meanwhile, voiced astonishment that police had linked him to the killings. Nicole Williams said she knew Ross and was "flabbergasted" by the news Friday.
Though the Hakeem family remained skeptical of Ross' involvement, Syed said he hoped the announcement would kick-start the healing process — especially for his sister.
"You don't understand losing two grown-up kids," he said. "We want to bring her out of this and back to normal life."
Tribune reporter Patrick Svitek contributed.
jbullington@tribune.com
dhinkel@tribune.com