Helen “Wendy” Laroche was just 21, recently married and starting to take college classes when she was murdered while working at a convenience store in Port Richey.

It was June 29, 1986, and Wendy was working the night shift at the Gas ‘N’ Save located at 10019 US Highway 19. The convenience store has since been torn down. A Home Depot and 7-Eleven are now in its place.

Dave Laroche first met Wendy when they were students at Hudson High School. They worked at a K-Mart together, shared many of the same friends and married after they graduated high school.

“She liked to have fun. She had a great sense of humor,” Laroche said.

Laroche is now the principal of Hudson High School. He says Wendy had a lifetime in front of her.

“Sadly, she had just started classes – I believe that summer or that spring before that summer – before this happened,” he said.

The night of the murder, he visited his wife at the store to trade out cars.

“I stayed with her for a few minutes, – 10, 15 minutes I recall – and everything seemed normal to me,” said Laroche.

Laroche left his wife’s car in the parking lot with her driver’s license on the seat of her car and said goodbye.

By pure coincidence, an off-duty Pasco County Sheriff’s Deputy came into the store after Wendy’s husband. William Lawless wasn’t in uniform. He was simply looking for transmission fluid for his personal car.

Years later, Lawless vividly remembers walking into the store and not being able to find anyone.

“You know, there wasn’t a lot of convenience stores in those days like there is now. As a matter of fact, this one was on the west side of 19, kind of where Home Depot is now and it was very secluded,” said Lawless.

So it seemed out of place to the deputy as he walked in and wasn’t able to find an employee.

“So finally I did the old ‘ahem, anybody here?’ And she popped up from behind the podium, which I thought was odd. And so my comments to her were, ‘you’re a woman, you’re here at night by yourself, you need to be more aware of your surroundings,'” Lawless recalled.

He remembers Wendy didn’t have much to say about his comments.

Detectives say she was killed minutes after Lawless left the store. Another customer found her lifeless body in a back room. She was already dead and the victim of multiple gunshots.

A receipt for the transmission fluid purchased by Lawless shows he was in the store just about 10 minutes before the next customer found Wendy’s body. It’s even possible the killer was already in the store as Lawless arrived and could have hidden in the back room.

“Reality, he probably was,” said Lawless.

Homicide Detective Todd Koenig is assigned to look at all of the unsolved murders in Pasco County.

“The Pasco Sheriff’s Office doesn’t just quit working these cases. We want the family to know that,” Koenig said.

Koenig says physical evidence shows Wendy was shot at very close range.

“Some of the injuries that she sustained looked more personal,” said Koenig.

That led the original detectives to speculate that Wendy may have known her killer.

“Typically when we find that, we find it was more personal, more of a hate, more of they want to get up close and make sure that it’s done,” said Koenig.

At the start of the investigation, detectives considered everyone who went to the store that night as a suspect – including Wendy’s husband.

“I was one of the people that they were focused on,” Dave Laroche remembered.

He says his young wife didn’t seem to have any ongoing arguments with anyone. He just remembers having to answer a lot of questions right after losing his young wife.

“It was horrible. A horrible night, a horrible experience,” said Laroche.

Detective Koenig says it’s part of normal investigative procedures to look at everyone the victim knows or who had contact with her.

“You start within their circle and work your way out because the majority of them, unless it’s a random robbery, it’s somebody that knows them,” said Koenig.

The homicide detective has now pored over old case files, reading and rereading the original reports.

“Guys did a pretty good job back then but there is always something they may have missed. That’s where I come in. I try to look at it again, a fresh set of eyes,” said Koenig.

He’s also using new techniques and technology to look at old physical evidence that’s been preserved in the case.

“I’ve submitted a lot of stuff back to the lab for DNA, still waiting on results back from some of that stuff,” said Koenig.

One theory that came to light early in the investigation was another young man who had taken an interest in Wendy despite the fact she was married.

“There was one individual that wanted to date her, although she was married, wanted to take her mudding that night,” said Koenig.

Detectives have never been able to prove if that person came to the Gas ‘N’ Save on the night of the murder.

Years after Wendy’s life was taken, Dave Laroche has discovered possible clues left at her graveside.

“Sometimes there are flowers, artificial and otherwise, left at the site that I – nobody from my family has ever left there,” said Laroche.

He says Wendy no longer has any family in the area and no one he knows is leaving the flowers. He admits it could be something as simple as one of her friends stopping by to remember her, but he would like to know to clear up the questions.

In the meantime, Detective Koenig is continuing to work all aspects of the case.

“The feeling isn’t as much as you solve the case as it is giving closure to a family member,” said Koenig.

Dave Laroche says closure would mean a great deal to him.

“It would mean, it would mean a lot,” a tearful Laroche told us.

There is a reward offered in the case. According to Crime Stoppers, “anonymous tipsters who contact Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay and give information, which law enforcement confirms led directly to the arrest of an adult or juvenile in an unsolved crime or the arrest of a wanted fugitive will be eligible for a reward of up to $3,000.”

You can contact them by calling 1-800-873 TIPS (8477)