About eight years ago, Anne and Bill Magness were looking for a volunteer project that they could work on together.
They heard that Meals on Wheels needed volunteers and asked their neighbor, Jean Darden, who coordinates a Meals on Wheels route, if they could help.
The couple picked up a monthly route and never missed a shift.
Thursday started as a typical delivery day for them.
They pulled into Bob Denning's driveway on Jonestown Road about noon to drop off a meal, the last of the couple's 13 deliveries for the day.
The couple were shot on Denning's porch. Anne Magness, 77, was killed. Bill Magness, 78, was wounded.
Inside the house, police found Denning, 64, dead.
John Anderson, Anne Magness' younger brother, said yesterday that Bill Magness was doing better.
The couple spent much of their time volunteering together for such organizations as Hospice & Palliative CareCenter.
"They were always interested in community things and family," Darden said.
"They are just wonderful people, just real special people, always friendly."
Friends describe Bill Magness as active and outgoing.
As a community-watch coordinator for the Clemmons West neighborhood, he sends safety updates to neighbors, Darden said.
Anne Magness, a breast-cancer survivor, volunteered at the Cancer Center at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Darden said.
"I'm going through time periods when you just want to yell out and scream," Anderson said.
News of the shootings has also shocked those who knew Denning.
"You really can't believe something like this," said Mike Kite, Denning's neighbor said of Denning. "This guy wouldn't harm nothing. He couldn't harm nothing."
Kite, Denning's neighbor of about 20 years, said that Denning lived alone.
Denning had a stroke about seven years ago that left him paralyzed on his left side. He walked slowly with a walker.
Kite said he is certain that when the shooter entered his neighbor's home, Denning thought that he was letting in a Meals on Wheels volunteer. "I can just see Bob pleading with the guy," Kite said.
"It just tears me up to think about it."
Denning lived off his Social Security check and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2006.
But he apparently still harbored hopes of striking it rich.
Each day, he drove to a BP station on Jonestown Road to buy lottery tickets and a pack of Virginia Slims.
Sarah Davis, who manages the BP, said that he would wait in his car until an employee came out, took his credit card and his order.
"He always said, ‘When I win big, we're going to be rich. I am going to give you some money,'" Davis recalled.
Last week, he kept his promise. He won $100 and gave Davis $20 of it.
"It had to be something random," she said, "He was such as sweet guy, no one could ever have any hate toward him."
Lisa Boone-Wood can be reached at 727-7232 or at lboone-wood@wsjournal.com.
Blair Goldstein can be reached at 727-7284 or at bgoldstein@wsjournal.com.
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