"They did at one time have little puppies and would walk them. "They've basically stayed at home," said neighbor Donald Becker. The couple joined the Fredericksburg-Stafford Chamber of Commerce in 1981 but were not very active members, chamber officials said. The Pettits have owned a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise for more than 25 years, and they recently won several company awards for customer satisfaction and high sales, said Richard Detwiller, public affairs director for the franchise chain's national office in Louisville. After shooting the three people, the gunman drove off in the Honda and abandoned it at a Safeway supermarket about half a mile away, police said. When the gunman went back in the house with Veronica Pettit, the daughter-in-law escaped and called the police at 7:51 p.m. When Veronica Pettit and the daughter-in-law, who lives next door, went with him out to the Honda, the man pulled out a handgun, demanded money, and locked the younger woman in the trunk, police said. The Pettits called their daughter-in-law to accompany Veronica Pettit on the drive. The assailant claimed that his car had broken down about a mile away and asked for a ride to a nearby Holiday Inn. The gunman apparently talked his way into the house by pretending to be from the Pettits' home town of Dundee, Miss., said Stafford police, who received information from the daughter-in-law. "They'd break their arms off waving to you," said neighbor Chester Szypulski. Neighbors said they did not know the family well. Neighbors said that Harvey and Veronica Pettit lived a quiet life but were very friendly. Their son, Christopher, and his wife live next door. The neighborhood, a suburb of Fredericksburg, is about 50 miles south of Washington. Neighbors said the Pettits owned one of the largest and most expensive houses in Clearview Heights, an upper-middle-class subdivision of single-family houses where prices start at $150,000. "My kids lost both their grandmothers," said the couple's son, Ron Pettit. Rexrode, who worked as a bookkeeper, lived with them and was the mother of one of their son's ex-wives, police said. The Pettits, who moved into Clearview Heights in southeastern Stafford County about 10 years ago, own a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Fredericksburg. The gunman, who took an undetermined amount of money, also locked one of the Pettits' daughters-in-law in the trunk of Veronica Pettit's white Honda Accord, but she escaped by unlatching one of the back seats while he was in the house, police said. Harvey Pettit, 78, is listed in serious but stable condition at Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, Va. Pettit, 72, and Velma Rexrode, 72, a family friend, shortly before 8 p.m., Stafford police said. A assailant, described as a stocky, bearded man in his mid-fifties, shot and killed Veronica M. Two elderly women were killed and an elderly man was seriously wounded Tuesday night when a gunman, after convincing the victims that his car had broken down, robbed their Stafford County home, police said.
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