Fast-Food Manager Slain In a Robbery Attempt

Two Men, Caught on Tape, Are Sought

Keith J. Truesdale didn't normally work at the Popeyes in Woodbridge, and Tuesday night he was just filling in for the manager, as he sometimes did, his friends said yesterday. So when a man with a gun ordered him to open the safe, they said, Truesdale wouldn't have known the combination.

After Truesdale was "unable to comply," the gunman fired his pistol once at him, fatally wounding the 23-year-old, Prince William County police said. The gunman and an accomplice with a knife quickly left through the unlocked rear door they had entered through and jumped into a vehicle.

"Somebody knows something," Justin Scroggins, a friend of Truesdale's, said of the incident. "What they do in the dark will come to light. I would like them to know they injured a really good person. They got a dark cloud running around them now."

Truesdale, who was a manager at a Popeyes in Dale City, was pronounced dead at Potomac Hospital not long after the 11 p.m. shooting.

That night, Darius Cooke, his partner, with whom he had exchanged rings in April, was waiting at their apartment for him to come home.

"I was expecting him to be there at 10 or 11," said Cooke, 21, adding that he was still waiting when his phone rang several hours later. "His mother called and said, 'Where is my son?' Then she just kept saying he was dead."

Cooke said he didn't believe it until he drove to the restaurant and saw the police lights. An officer confirmed it, he said.

"I'm going to miss him a lot," said Cooke, sitting in their living room, poring through a box filled with photos of them. He said that Truesdale hadn't wanted to go to work that day because his head hurt and that he was stressed out about their impending move into a townhouse. Still, he left about 3 p.m.

"I was like, 'I'll see you when you get home then,' " Cooke said, remembering his last words to him.

The Popeyes, on Smoketown Road, remained closed yesterday, a handwritten sign on the door telling customers it would not be open until 10:30 this morning. The Popeyes corporate headquarters issued this statement:

"The Popeyes family is devastated by this situation: our deepest sympathies go out to the family of Mr. Truesdale. The restaurant owner is taking all of the proper actions in this situation by cooperating with the authorities, and we are following the situation very closely."

Prince William detectives continued searching for the robbers yesterday and released surveillance photographs. Authorities said the men left in a vehicle parked behind a nearby office complex on Golansky Boulevard. Police asked that anyone with information about the slaying call Crime Solvers at 866-411-TIPS.

"Whoever did this is heartless, and they cold and they are crazy," Scroggins said, sitting on his friend's couch, petting his dog, Max. "They didn't have to shoot anybody."

Scroggins said he met Truesdale shortly after Truesdale moved to Virginia from Harlem in 2003, leaving behind a family he remained close to. "He wanted to come down here and better his life," Scroggins said. "He said New York was too busy."

Truesdale worked hard, those who knew him said, and was the first to scold his friends if he saw them slipping from the right path. In addition to his Popeyes job, he worked part time at Wal-Mart over the holidays, friends said.

"He was advancing," Scroggins said.

"He always wanted to be successful," said another friend, Dwayne Pollock. "People need to know he was a great person, he lived a great life and he will definitely be missed."