Friendliness, Generosity of Slain ATM Worker Recalled : Profile: Family says Robert Walsh cherished his grandchildren and doted on his pets. Separation from wife wasn’t considered permanent.

NEWPORT BEACH — Janice and Robert Walsh both knew their separation after 24 years of marriage was just a temporary matter. Even after he moved out a year ago, Robert Walsh was always a phone call away--to make repairs, spend time with family or go out for Mexican food.

But now, the automated teller machine technician is gone forever, shot in the head and burned in his company car after disappearing from his work route Friday. What remains is grief and regret.

“We were just waiting for the other one to say, ‘Come home,’ ” Janice Walsh, 58, said Monday as she sat in the living room of the mobile home on West 15th Street that the couple had remodeled together. “It was pride. It’s something I’m going to have to live with.”

The wedge that separated them for a time has not tainted the way Janice Walsh wants her husband remembered. The murder, she said, was “an evil thing to do to a wonderful person who loved people, was always outgoing and was generous with his time.”

Robert Walsh cherished his six grandchildren and doted on his pet cats and dogs, she said. The neighboring children were so fond of him, family members said Monday, that they turned him into a human jungle gym every time he sat still.

“They’ve taken a man who was an uncle, a grandfather, a friend, a brother,” said Cheryl Walsh, 36, the ex-wife of Walsh’s 32-year-old son, Frank, who has remained close to the family. “That’s the hardest part.”

Monday, Cheryl Walsh’s 4-year-old daughter, Tyler, painted in a coloring book inside the Walsh home and listened in on the conversation.

“I don’t have any grandpas,” she piped in. “They’re all in heaven.”

The family launched an exhaustive search when Walsh disappeared Friday after servicing an ATM at a Wells Fargo Bank at South Tustin Street and East Collins Avenue in Orange, police said. But two days of looking for the powder blue 1993 Ford Escort Walsh was driving yielded nothing.

On Monday, police, using fingerprints, identified Walsh’s remains in a torched car found Sunday in the 3500 block of East Chapman Avenue in Orange.

The 60-year-old former Marine and Fullerton police officer chose to work unarmed, but wore a bullet-resistant vest and carried a beeper, according to Joe Allen, a spokesman for Wells Fargo Armored Service Corp., where Walsh had worked since September.

The car Walsh drove was equipped with a two-way radio and a vault in which he stored the deposit envelopes he collected from ATMs, Allen said.

Allen said Walsh “was picking up ATM deposit envelopes from ATMs and delivering them to banks. This is considered to be a very low liability route, primarily because deposit envelopes typically contain checks and very little, if any, cash.”

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Police have confirmed that an accelerant was used to start the blaze that burned Walsh’s car. They have released a composite sketch of a man seen running from the car. The man dashed into a car being driven away from the scene by someone else, witnesses told police.

The county coroner’s office has attributed the cause of death to the gunshot wound, but has not yet determined the time of death or whether Walsh was killed inside or outside his car, said Orange Police Lt. Timm Browne.

Janice and Robert Walsh met and married in 1969, blending their two families--her son, Frank, and his three sons Kurt, Kent and Kevin, now 37, 35 and 31, respectively.

Robert Walsh coached Pop Warner football in Fullerton, compiling a successful record and becoming popular among the young players, Janice Walsh said. He so doted on his Siberian huskies he dedicated a photo album to them.

The couple sold their Fullerton home two years ago and moved to the mobile home “to make our life a little simpler.”

“His grandkids were everything to him,” said Diane Henry, 30, Kent Walsh’s girlfriend, who joined the Walshes in their weekend search. “Just a few weeks ago he stopped by Kent’s place to drop off a present for Kent’s little girl--a little wooden train with sing-along tapes.”

Despite the separation, Janice Walsh said their love remained strong. Friends such as Philip Goehring, a former Fullerton police chief, also believed the couple would soon reconcile.

The weekend before he disappeared, Walsh came to the home to repair Janice’s furnace.

“I reached out and touched him and said, ‘You fixed it!’ ” she recalled between smiles and sobs Monday. “He was so pleased that I was proud of him. He just held me and held me. That was the last time he held me. . . . I just can’t imagine my life without him.”

Walsh served on the Fullerton police force from 1961 to 1966, but was forced to retire because of a knee injury. Giving up police work “devastated” her husband, who loved the contact with people and opportunity to resolve their disputes, Janice Walsh said.

“He always said he was not a police officer, he was a peacemaker,” she said.

Robert Walsh worked as a purchasing agent for 16 years before he was laid off last year, his wife said. “He tried to get back into purchasing but it was hard because of his age,” she said.

Wells Fargo Armored Service Corp. is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a suspect. Allen said information should be directed to Orange Police Detective Jorge DeSouza at (714) 744-7514.

Times staff writers Greg Johnson and Ching-Ching Ni contributed to this report.