Manager found dead inside store

Police identified the woman as Robin Bell, 44, of Tonganoxie.

Bell’s husband called police sometime after 2 a.m. Saturday, asking them to check on his wife because she hadn’t arrived home. The store closes at 8 p.m.

Police broke into the store’s locked front doors about 2:30 a.m. and found Bell dead in the back of the store, said Sgt. Mark Zaretski. She had severe head trauma.

Bell’s car was parked in front of the store.

Zaretski said police were reviewing a tape from a security camera outside a nearby restaurant/pool hall.

Money was found in the Dollar General, he said.

Bell was a hard-working, well-liked store employee who recently had been promoted, said customer Connie Delladio.

“She was just really nice,” Delladio said, barely getting the words out through loud sobs Saturday morning.

Bell seemed to never take a day off at the small store in the strip mall on the southwest corner of Kansas 7 and Kansas Avenue, Delladio said. And she had been eagerly awaiting the birth of a grandchild, Delladio said.

Delladio had worried that Bell might not be safe, working at the store alone at night.

Rob Owen, the manager of the Cummins Tools store next door to Dollar General, said that Bell was “a real good girl.”

He had closed his store at 6 p.m. Friday and chatted with Bell for about 20 minutes before leaving, he said.

Larry Lee, an assistant manager at Cummins Tools, said the rumor around the strip mall was that the murder occurred during a robbery.

But Bell’s death seemed strange to him, Lee said, because in a robbery a manager often just hands the money over and the robber flees.

“I’m shocked,” Lee said. “The customers are shocked.”