A quick-lube service owner was found shot to death outside his business Tuesday morning, and police and family are unsure exactly why.

The body of Larry Norris, 64, was found shortly before 7 a.m. by a trash hauler in the parking lot behind Valvoline Express Care, 3419 Gene Field Road. His black SUV was parked just feet from his body. St. Joseph police said he suffered a single gunshot wound to the torso.

They do not have any motive or suspects in the slain businessman’s death — the first homicide in St. Joseph this year. Police are asking anyone who may have been in the Belt Highway-Gene Field Road area about 6 a.m. to contact them.

Mr. Norris was an Iowa transplant who had moved to St. Joseph 11 years ago to be near his grandchildren. His family said he was a neighborly businessman who always put family first.

He had been anxiously awaiting the wedding of his youngest son on Saturday. The family voted to have the ceremony, at the Lake of the Ozarks, go on as planned.

“We’re trying to get everything done today and tomorrow, and just go down to the lake and relax, have this wedding and then we’ll come back and have the funeral. That’s what he would have wanted,” his wife, Alice, said Tuesday afternoon at their condo on the East Side, as family and friends streamed in with food, sympathy and hugs.

“He was just such a terrific guy. He just wanted to help everybody. I don’t understand who would have shot him. It almost had to be somebody that didn’t know what they were doing.”

His three sons — Todd, Rod and Rob — remembered their father as a man who was always there.

Todd Norris remembered his father’s willingness to leave their hometown of Lamoni, Iowa, when he told him they would raise their family in St. Joseph. “The second we uttered grandchild, he chucked everything he had up there and moved up here,” Todd Norris, 40, said.

That was in 1998, when Rob had just graduated from college.

Mr. Norris, a mechanic by trade, was not able to afford college tuition for his three sons. So he and his wife took jobs at the local Graceland University to get free tuition for their sons. Mr. Norris worked as a purchasing agent and Mrs. Norris as a cafeteria worker.

Rob Norris said his father was a religious man who built his quick-lube business in St. Joseph on the principle of service to his fellow man.

“His deal was to help people. It’s business, but his main thing was he just liked helping people,” Rob Norris, 33, said.

Rod Norris, 37, remembered the 2 a.m. phone calls for help from stranded motorists on the interstate. “Customers would call him when they didn’t know who else to call, and he would go and help. That’s how he was,” he said.

His neighbor, Edwina Stojevich, said Mr. Norris always placed her newspaper at her doorstep before leaving for work each day at 5:45 a.m.

Police scoured the crime scene when they arrived at Valvoline Express Care about 6:50 a.m. They said they did not have leads and were seeking any witnesses. Capt. Kevin Castle, a police spokesman, said investigators “definitely think there is criminal activity.” He did not dismiss the notion it may have been a possible robbery gone bad.

This is the first homicide investigation by St. Joseph police in 2009. In May, four St. Joseph men were allegedly involved with a homicide in which the body was dumped in Andrew County.

The Norris family says they are overwhelmed by community support. They are asking any residents with information to come forward.

“If you have any information, let the police know. We just don’t want anyone else to get hurt,” said Rob Norris.

Anyone with information is asked to call the TIPS hotline, 238-TIPS.

Ahmad Safi can be reached

at ahmadsafi@npgco.com.