Story highlights Fire marshal: Blaze was intentionally set at victims' North Carolina house

The victims "would give the shirts off their back," the fire marshal adds

Authorities found their bodies in a truck driven by a man involved in a police shootout

(CNN) Really good people.

That's how Judy Law of Oxford, North Carolina, described her neighbors Jerome Faulkner, 73, and his wife, Dora, 62. The couple were found dead Thursday by West Virginia authorities, their bodies hidden under a mattress in a red Chevrolet truck after two police officers were shot and wounded at the scene.

"They kept to themselves, but when someone needed them, they were there," Law said of the Faulkners. "I can't even begin to understand why something like this happened."

The first sign of something amiss came Thursday morning, when Law woke to sirens and fire trucks congregating about 500 feet up the road at the Faulkners' home in Oxford.

Granville County Fire Marshal Doug Logan said the blaze was set intentionally, destroying the house. Video showed that it left little more than the home's front steps, its foundation and some scorched framing.

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