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Before Srinivas Kuchibhotla’s death in a possible hate crime, his family warned him about the dangers of remaining in the United States.

His wife was unsure whether they should stay, even as they planned to start a family in Kansas. “I told him many times we should think about going back (to India),” Sunayana Dumala said at a news conference Friday.

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And yet, Dumala said, Kuchibhotla was not fearful. He refused to abandon “the country he loved.”

“He always assured me good things will happen to good people,” she said, speaking briefly and between deep breaths, two days after his death.

Police say Adam W. Purinton, 51, opened fire Wednesday night on Kuchibhotla and another Indian man drinking with him at Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe, a Kansas City, Kansas, suburb – killing Kuchibhotla, wounding his friend and a third patron who tried to help.

Witnesses reported that Purinton shouted racial slurs and told the two men to “get out of my country.” He was arrested at a bar in Missouri, where the bartender told police Purinton claimed to have killed two Middle Eastern men, according to the Kansas City Star. The FBI is investigating whether to add hate-crime charges to his counts of murder and attempted murder.