Anita Crouse Chaffin delivered thousands of pieces of mail to the same southeast Charlotte neighborhood in her more than 15 years with the postal service.
But one piece of certified mail led to her death there Thursday afternoon.
The 69-year-old veteran carrier was killed on Rittenhouse Circle off Sardis Road North just before 1:45 p.m. when the Jeep Cherokee she used to deliver the mail ran over her.
The postal service brought in counselors Thursday afternoon to console Chaffin's coworkers when they returned from their routes. And word spread in the neighborhood where folks waved to the nice woman who delivered their mail.
"This lady was such a sweetheart," said Terry Brown, who lives across from where the wreck occurred. "She was very, very efficient. You don't see a lot of people like that anymore."
By midday Thursday, Chaffin, who lives in Lincoln County, had already dropped off mail to part of her route, leaning out the right side of her specially equipped Jeep to stuff mailboxes.
But in the 8000 block of the road, she parked her Jeep and got out. She apparently needed a signature on a piece of certified mail.
The sport utility vehicle wasn't in gear, said Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Sgt. Ricky Robbins. It started to roll backward down the sloping road.
Chaffin tried to stop it.
But the door struck her, knocking her to the ground, Robbins said. The front tires rolled over her.
And the Jeep kept going. It struck against an apple tree, skinning its trunk. Then it bounced in the opposite direction, clipping a crape myrtle tree and two mailboxes.
It finally came to rest against a neighbor's parked car more than 150 feet away.
Amanda Morin, a 29-year-old stay-at-home mom, had just gotten back from the park when she heard the crash of the vehicles. She said she looked outside and saw Chaffin's Jeep against her neighbor's car.
She couldn't tell what had happened. Then she went outside and saw the Chaffin in the street.
Chaffin was pronounced dead where she lay.
Nearby, the two fallen mail boxes lay flat on the ground, neighbors said, spilling out the letters Chaffin had delivered just minutes earlier.
