Zachary Blacklock was saving to buy a car, so his grandparents were happy to help out by shuttling him back and forth to a video store where he worked.
Their generosity may have cost them their lives.The couple were found dead in the woods Monday, the day after their 19-year-old grandson was killed in a video store along with two other employees.
Police suspect Pauline McDougall, 74, and her husband, George, 77, stumbled onto a robbery at the store and were then abducted by whoever killed their grandson and his co-workers.
Family members said Pauline McDougall didn't like to drive at night, which is why her husband may have been along for the 2 a.m. trip to the video store to pick up their grandson, who lived with them.
"She worshiped Zack," said the couple's son-in-law Ed Blacklock, Zachary's father. "If that meant getting up in the middle of the night to pick him up, that's what she did."
It was the last time anybody knew of their whereabouts until two passers-by in the mountains about 20 miles east of Albuquerque recognized the McDougalls' car from news reports. Minutes later, police found the couple shot to death.
About 36 hours earlier, on Sunday morning, workers found Zach-ary Blacklock, Jowanda Castillo, 18, and Mylinh Daothi, 30, bound and shot in the back room of the Hollywood Video store. The store's doors were unlocked and money was missing.
Daothi was described by her sister as a drifter who had lived in Arizona and Colorado before re-lo-cat-ing to New Mexico to be closer to her family.
Castillo was a high school senior who played basketball and ran for homecoming queen at Highland High School, just down the street from where she died. She often brought sandwiches to a homeless man who lived outside the video store.
"She was always attached to the underdog. She was a very caring young person," said her mother, Lori Baneulos. "I couldn't ask for a better daughter."
Ed Blacklock said his son was a few credits short of high school graduation last year but had decided to drop out. He had just sent a resume to Disney World in Florida, and if nothing panned out there, he was thinking about enrolling in art school.
In the meantime, his dad said, "We were talking about developing a savings plan. He said he was doing that, saving for a car and all the stuff that goes with it. . . . I guess we don't have to worry about that now."
Neither police nor store officials would release much information about the robbery, including how much money was taken.
Police Chief Joe Polisar said there were no suspects and no pattern to follow "because we've never had an armed robbery result in five murders in Albuquerque."