On the morning of March 25, 1978, three employees at a Shoney’s restaurant in Henrico County, Virginia, were killed during an armed robbery. Agnes Hicks, 43, a waitress, was one of the victims. Morning manager Steven Staples, 20, and janitor Franklin Cooley, 40, were also shot; Cooley was taken to a hospital but died several hours later without regaining consciousness.

Police identified 25-year-old short-order cook Charles Sylvester Stamper as the assailant. Investigators say Stamper forced the three into the restaurant’s walk-in cooler at gunpoint, shot them with a .22 caliber pistol, and stole about $4,000 from the safe. Ballistics reportedly matched bullets to a revolver recovered at his parents’ home, and bank records tied him to large payments made with the stolen funds. Stamper was arrested and later convicted of three counts of capital murder committed during an armed robbery; the jury returned guilty verdicts on November 17, 1978.

Are there readers who remember the Henrico County community or the Shoney’s location in 1978 and can add context about the victims or that shift?