BELLE GLADE -- The sister of bass-fishing champion Jimmy McMillan is certain that someone in the tight-knit neighborhood surrounding the family’s grocery store knows something that will lead to finding her brother’s killer. Thursday, she begged everyone to share what they know.

Her plea went out to both the news media and the more than 200 people gathered in front of the Alabama Georgia Grocery Store founded here by their great-grandfather in the 1940s.

“I’m speaking to the people who live in this neighborhood,” said Connie Deaton, flanked by her husband and McMillan’s eldest son. “They are good people. They know … they have the ability to know who did this. Please come forward.”

Where Deaton left off, local pastors picked up, praying with those gathered, while others in the crowd simply chanted: “Stop the violence!”

McMillan, a 49-year-old champion fisherman and father of three, was shot to death Monday morning by an unknown gunman at the popular grocery store.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the killer.

To hear those in the parking lot tell it, McMillan — a white man who ran the family’s grocery store in a mostly black neighborhood — was generous to a fault, knew everyone and their children by name, and was a person people sought out even after they moved away and were in town for a day.

“I came because I loved Jimmy,” said Pamela Allen, who grew up nearby and drove from Royal Palm Beach. “I don’t even live here anymore, but this is still my home.”

That’s the other reason so many filled this dinged-up asphalt parking lot in front of the large gray concrete box that is the Alabama Georgia Grocery: They want to reclaim their community.

“I’d like to be able to see my community return to what it was when I grew up,” Allen said.

The crime, they say, has become intolerable.

“They dumped the body of my cousin out here. It’s been about four years now. They never solved it,” said 49-year-old Lynette Adams, who says she “grew up on Southwest Avenue D with outdoor toilets” but no murders.

Pastor Ken Jackson of the Glades Covenant Community Church said McMillan’s murder may be the event that triggers change.

“We want people to know this is not a black thing or a white thing. People need to come together,” Jackson said. “We pray for the good that will come out of this.”

The lives of everyone are at stake, argued Evelina Clarke, who believes only fate kept her from meeting McMillan’s killer that morning.

“My husband got a job and didn’t get out of the house till 7. I usually get in there at 6:30,” said Clarke, who stood on the corner with four of her grandchildren toting “Stop the Violence” signs. “And if school were in, lots of people send their children to the grocery in the morning.”

McMillan’s father, Wilson, believes he should have been the one opening the store at 5:30 a.m. Monday, said Wilson’s wife, Linda. “Forty-nine-year-old people are not supposed to die,” she said.

But if it hadn’t been for the younger McMillan, the store would probably have closed or been sold 10 years ago, Linda McMillan said.

The store was founded in the 1940s by her grandfather. Linda McMillan went to work there when she was 13 and, as an adult, she and her husband bought it.

Jimmy McMillan was adamant that he wasn’t the next in line until 10 years ago, when his parents told him they planned to retire.

“He was the bravest man I ever knew. An exceptional father, an exceptional father, a man who deserved to live,” Linda McMillan said before emotion overcame her.