Josephine Varnier Stone stopped by Penny Lane Pub in downtown Richmond on Friday night to say hello to friends and former co-workers before heading to a show at The National. She'd planned on returning after the concert and left some of her possessions behind.
But Stone, 23, was struck by a motor vehicle shortly before 10 p.m. as she walked toward the East Broad Street concert hall. She was pronounced dead at VCU Medical Center.
Stone was hit as she walked along Fifth Street by a vehicle being pulled into the Hilton Garden Inn garage by a valet parking attendant, said Richmond Police Capt. Yvonne Crowder.
Crowder said police will consult with the commonwealth's attorney's office on Monday to determine charges in the case.
"Everyone's just walking around in a daze," said Terence O'Neill, the younger half of the father-son team that has operated Penny Lane since 1979. "It's just something you don't expect to deal with, ever."
Stone, known to her co-workers as Josie, had worked as a waitress at Penny Lane since December 2007. The pub was where she met her future husband, John, then a chef at Penny Lane. She left the job shortly after graduating cum laude from Virginia Commonwealth University last spring with degrees in print journalism and English.
Stone had recently started a new job as a technical writer for WellPoint. "I think she was real excited to do something with writing," said waitress Elizabeth Haegele.
She also had served as managing editor of Quail Bell Magazine, described on its website as "a quirky print and online magazine that blurs the lines between the real and the unreal through its exploration of the imaginary, the nostalgic and the otherworldly."
In a brief bio on the site, Stone said she "grew up in the South at the end of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere," and that since moving to Richmond to attend VCU she had been "a dough-slinging pizza-maker" and "a foul-mouthed bar wench," and had been "a personal assistant to a CEO."
But to those who knew her she showed great promise as an aspiring journalist.
"I'm just astounded because Josie and I had been corresponding this past week about all the things that were going on in her life, all these good things," said Jeff South, an associate professor in the Mass Communications department at VCU.
In 2009, Stone was one of a dozen staff members chosen nationally to write for The Working Press, the publication of the Society of Professional Journalists' annual conference in Indianapolis. As a correspondent for VCU's Capital News Service, Stone would use the back of her waitress pad to jot down information from lobbyists or legislators who were drinking or dining in Penny Lane.
"She could flip the switch from being a waitress to a reporter," South said. "This was a very talented young journalist and an incredibly nice person."
"She was really funny," Haegele said. "She definitely kept everyone in a really good mood. She was the go-to person to talk to about stuff."
Stone was married on Halloween and would have celebrated her wedding anniversary Monday. "It was her favorite holiday," Haegele said.
South recalled watching an excited Stone receive her degree, "and the promise she had as a journalist. I guess it just shows how quickly life can turn."
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