As neighbors awoke Saturday to the news Hough had been found dead, the victim of an apparent robbery gone bad, shock, disbelief and mourning clouded an otherwise sunny day, reported the Indianapolis Star.
"I hurt so bad, and I just [image-nocss] cried until I couldn't cry anymore," Laverne Ayers, who lives a couple of blocks from the store, told the newspaper. "I just have a big hole in my heart today. I loved that woman."
A customer discovered something was wrong at the store on Meridian Street about 5 a.m. Saturday, after finding two young men behind the counter gathering items, Sgt. Paul Thompson of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, told the newspaper.
The two men eventually ran from the store; the customer followed, but lost them on foot in the neighborhood south of the store.
The customer returned to the store and found Hough, 62, of Indianapolis on the floor. Medics pronounced her dead at the scene. An autopsy determined she died from a gunshot wound to the head, Thompson said.
Prior to the arrests Monday, many local residents, including Hough's son Tim Rico, believed Hough was killed by someone in the neighborhood who knew her.
"When they rob a small business, it has to be somebody from the neighborhood," Rico told WXIN-59 over the weekend. "I think somebody's scared to say something. They robbed me of my motherthe only parent I had left."
Community members planned to do everything possible to help police find whoever was responsible, Ayers said.
"I just can't believe they did this to her," Ayers said. "I told her to get out of here because she had been robbed so many times. She said she was getting out in January."
Hough, who had worked at the store for 23 years, planned to retire in January, Ayers said. Calls to Village Pantry parent company Worsley Co., Wilmington, N.C., were not returned at press time.
Despite their anger and shock, neighbors found time Saturday to reminisce and even laugh as they recalled a woman who had become a part of their evening and morning routines, according to the newspaper report. Serving as night clerk at the same store for more than 20 years, Hough became a fixture in the neighborhood.
Ayers would stop at the Village Pantry every morning on her way to work and find her two doughnuts and a pack of cigarettes waiting on the counter. In some cases when Ayers was in a hurry, Hough would tell her to take them and pay her later.
Numerous stories abound about Hough setting particular doughnuts aside for neighborhood children or about her warm, friendly smile that greeted every customer who entered the store, the newspaper reported.
"Whenever I came here, she was always nice and caring and pleasant, and treated everyone with respect. She was a good lady," said customer George Wiley.
"She'd always try to help everyone in the neighborhood, give them directions or whatever," said customer Michael Collins. "She was always really nice and kind."
Billy Rogers, who now lives in Shelbyville, Ind., but grew up in Indianapolis neighborhood, rushed to his mother's home directly behind the Village Pantry after hearing the news Saturday.
"It's just a sad day for everyone around here," he told the newspaper. "We all knew that she had been robbed many times there, but it never got to a point of violence until today. This neighborhood over the years went from being a friendly, nice place to grow up to a place with a few bad apples that have brought in drugs and crime. It is just so unfortunate."
On Monday, Bruce Lee Aldrich and Shawn Thomas Heyob, both 19, were held on preliminary charges of murder, robbery and confinement, according to the newspaper. Police stayed tight-lipped about why they think the two men shot Hough. Only cigarettes were reported stolen in the robbery. Both men have criminal records for violent crime; Heyob had been released from prison just a few days before the killing, according to the newspaper.
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