The funeral for the Marietta couple killed on a trip to South Georgia to buy a Ford Mustang advertised on Craigslist will be Saturday, Channel 2 Action News reported.
The service for Bud and June Runion will be at 1 p.m. at Mt. Paran North Church of God, Marietta, the news station reported Wednesday.
The Runions’ bodies were found Monday in woods in rural Telfair County, four days after they left their Marietta home. They had been missing since they left Thursday for the 200-mile drive.
A close friend and neighbor of the Marietta couple found shot to death called the Runions "the epitome" of the perfect neighbors.
“I think we’re still in shock,” Tom Murphy said Wednesday. “Angry.”
The Runions left their home to travel to McRae, where they thought they were meeting a man from Craigslist about a 1966 Mustang convertible. The Runions made it to Telfair County, but there was no car.
Instead, investigators believe it was all a scheme to rob the couple, Telfair County Sheriff Chris Steverson said. The Runions’ bodies were found Monday, four days after they left their home. They were shot in the head with a small caliber gun, GBI autopsy results showed Tuesday.
Ronnie Adrian "Jay" Towns of McRae, the last person who talked with the Runions about the Craigslist ad, remained behind bars on charges of malice murder and armed robbery Wednesday, a day after a magistrate judge in Telfair County denied him bond.
When Murphy’s family moved next door to the Runions in 2006, “they greeted us the first 24 hours we were here, and June had a pie with her, and they were always there for us,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, adding that the Runions “were the epitome of what you would like to have as a neighbor, somebody that’s warm and welcoming.”
Bud Runion “pretty much devoted his life to helping other people out,” Murphy said. “If I needed something, he was the first one there. Even if he was in the middle of something, he would drop what he was doing and come over and help.”
Murphy said Bud Runion had a charity called “Bud’s Bikes,” where he fixed up bikes or got new bikes and took them to kids who couldn’t afford them, sometimes delivering bikes to underprivileged children as far away as Kentucky and West Virginia.
A Vietnam veteran, Bud Runion flew an American flag from a pole in his front yard. Murphy said that after learning of the couple’s deaths, he and another neighbor came over and lowered the flag to half-mast.
“I thought it was appropriate,” he said.
Murphy choked back tears Wednesday as he remembered a recent incident involving his neighbor.
The Runions were celebrating their anniversary, and Bud asked to borrow Murphy’s pressure washer.
“He came back about an hour later, and I was confused, because his driveway is so big, he couldn’t have power-washed it,” Murphy said. “I came out and saw “Bud and June” (pressure-washed) on the driveway. That just kind of shows you how he cared about his wife so much.”
—Staff writer Steve Visser contributed to this report.
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