Bertha Tardy had gone to interior design school in New York and for years wrote a weekly column in The Winona Times called the Decorator's Diary. Since the 1950s, she'd worked for Tom Tardy, sharing her design tips with customers at his furniture store. As Tom Tardy neared retirement age in 1985, he sold his store to Bertha. In 1994, he married her too. Over the years, Bertha became a civic leader in town. She'd served as president of the Montgomery County Economic Council and Winona's Downtown Merchants Association. Bertha Tardy had one adult daughter, Roxanne Ballard, who she'd raised on her own. Ballard described her mother in court as "a very strong Christian woman."

Robert Golden grew up in Winona and graduated from Mississippi Valley State University. He started working at Tardy Furniture on the day he was murdered there. He was training to be a delivery man. He left behind a wife, a teenage son with diabetes and a younger son with developmental disabilities. His newly divorced brother, Willie, said Robert found time to check on him, even as Robert worked hard to support two sick children. "He'd get off work at night, he would come by, sometimes he wouldn't even come in. He would just come by the window and [ask] me was I all right," Willie said. "That just meant so much to me."

Carmen Rigby had worked at Tardy Furniture for more than 20 years. She did a little bit of everything at the store — bookkeeping, managing and sales. At the time of Carmen's death, one of her sons had just graduated from college and the other, Bryan, was about to start college on a baseball scholarship. Her pastor said she loved children and ran the daycare at their church. Her husband of 25 years, Benny, said Carmen and Bertha Tardy were "like sisters." He said one of Carmen's favorite things to do was accompany him on the road when he performed country and gospel music in nearby towns.

Derrick Stewart had jokingly been called Bo Derrick. A shortened version of the nickname — Bobo — had stuck. Bobo was a Guns N' Roses fan, a pool shark and a standout baseball player. The night before he died, he pitched a 7-0 shutout in an all-star game. He was a friend of Carmen Rigby's son, Bryan, and through the Rigbys he'd gotten the job loading furniture at Tardy's. Bobo liked to hustle. "He had a big dream of life," his mother, Kathy Permenter, said. "In the second grade, he said, 'Mama ... I would love to just go get a GED and go to work somewhere. I just want to ... get a job and make money.'"