Sandra Dear found the first note in a mailbox outside of her bookshop on Aug. 1, 2017, a day after it opened in Bayonne, New Jersey. "Get out, we do not want your kind here," she said it read.
Dear, who is Black, was disappointed but didn't make a big deal of it because she didn't want to overshadow the day before, NBC News reports.
Over the next three years, Dear would received notes, emails and phone calls with a similar tone or racial bias. She finally contacted authorities earlier this month after receiving a phone call that threatened her life. Bayonne police launched an investigation into what they deemed an act of bias intimidation. On Nov. 21, officers on post at the bookshop were approached by a man who uttered the same words that were in the emails sent to the bookshop, police said.
The man, identify as Qiuewn Zheng, 59, was arrested and charged with bias intimidation, cyber-harassment and making terroristic threats and is being held without bail at Hudson County Correctional Center.
About a week later, patrons from Bayonne and beyond walked into her "happy place" with an overriding message on Small Business Saturday: "Love overcomes hate," Dear said.
Read the full story on NBCNews.com
