Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The bad guy finally got her.
Juliet Richardson, who was an officer with Albemarle Police Department for many years and South Albemarle community correspondent for The Stanly News & Press for about 20 years, died Thursday. She turned 66 on June 14.
She had survived cancer five times, with bouts in 2006, 2015, 2017, 2021 and 2022. She could not defeat it this time.
But Richardson had overcome other obstacles before.
An accident in 2000 forced her to retire from APD.
“I was picking up my grandson at daycare and this guy came around the corner,” Richardson recalled in an interview this spring. “I had just got him in the vehicle and I was getting ready to get in. It hit my car in the back, knocked me down and my foot got caught between the wheel and the sidewalk.”
The incident led to eight surgeries, which helped save her right foot.
Albemarle Mayor Ronnie Michael called Richardson “an excellent police officer who took pride in her profession and also protecting her community.”
“She was also available to anyone who needed help,” said Michael, who was police chief when Richardson retired.
“Losing Juliet to an injury in the prime of her career was a great loss to all of the department,” he added. “Once retired, Juliet continued to be involved with fellow police officers and retired police officers. She was a leader with the retired police officers. Juliet will be missed and I am fortunate to have been able to call her my friend.”
A benefit was held at her church, Saints Delight, on April 13 to help raise funds to pay mounting medical bills from her cancer treatments.
Richardson told The Stanly News & Press recently she was intending to send in a note thanking everyone for supporting her.
SNAP New London community correspondent Vanessa Chambers was friends with Richardson.
“Juliet and I checked on each other quite often because we were going through cancer at the same time,” Chambers said. “I remember her calling me and we talked, prayed and cried. It wasn’t long before the phone rang, it was her again and asked if she could just come by and lay eyes on me. We cried again and said to each other we are in this together and that God had us. She fought a good fight and had finished her course.
“She will always be in my heart,” she added. “We would text each other and just say how are you doing and we loved each other. I was afraid to answer the phone because I felt it was the call I didn’t want to hear. We have to talk to God every day to let him know that he is our father and he knows what’s best for us. I will definitely miss her and glad I had time to spend with her at the hospital before she went home the next day.”

B.J. Drye is general manager/editor of The Stanly News & Press. Call 704-982-2123.

Other news involving Juliet Richardson:

She was the niece of the late Bishop James E. Richardson. Read about how she helped honor her uncle here.

She had also become a great-grandmother.