Pair’s Slayings at Orange Home Stun Families : Tragedy: Police aren’t releasing details in the case, but the drum-store owner’s employees speculate that the men walked in on a robbery.

While police continued to search for clues in the mysterious slayings of two men in an exclusive home, friends and families of the victims said Monday that they are stunned by the loss.

“I don’t think what happened has really hit any of us here yet,” said Steve Waldon, assistant to Robert Wrate, 51, owner of West Coast Drum Center in Santa Ana.

On Saturday, Wrate’s body was found at his home along with that of Ramon Kim Johnson, 42, of Whittier, a sales representative for Hoshino USA, which manufactures musical instruments.

Waldon said the two had gone to lunch Friday to discuss business and had stopped by Wrate’s home after eating. When Rhonda Johnson reported her husband missing after he did not return home from work Friday night, police went to Wrate’s house and found the bodies.

Police are not releasing details of their investigation but have said they believe the shooting deaths to be a double murder. Employees at the drum store speculated that the two may have walked in on a robbery.

Wrate’s desk at the drum store Monday was just as he had left it Friday morning when he went to lunch. Drum brochures and promotional posters were strewn across it. On the wall, a picture of Wrate with blazing red hair and a beard was cut out and taped over the face of a drummer depicted on a poster.

“The phones have been ringing off the hook,” Waldon said Monday. “Everyone who plays drums around here comes to this store. They all know Bob.”

Wrate, owner of the largest drum store in California, had lived alone in the million-dollar home on Ridgeline Road in Orange since last August. Each day, Wrate returned home in the middle of the day to administer medication to one of four purebred Samoyed dogs he raised, store employees said.

On Monday, police took several of Wrate’s employees and friends to the house to determine if any of his belongings were missing.

Johnson, a devout Mormon and father of six, was a top salesman at Hoshino USA for 15 years. Friends and family from his hometown of Idaho Falls, Idaho, were arriving Monday to console Johnson’s wife and six children in Whittier.

“We are really pulling together as a family,” said Michal, 18, Johnson’s older daughter. “We are getting a lot of help from friends and people from the church. And we pray a lot.”

She said her father grew up in a home that appreciated religious faith and music.

“He loved to play the guitar and sing,” she said. “He liked to sing real hokey songs and always had a wisecrack.”

She said that the family, which includes four sons and another daughter, is trying to cope with the loss.

“We had Scripture readings every morning and family night on Sunday,” she said. Without him, “the void is immediate. Nothing can ever replace him.”