A retired Presbyterian missionary and her daughter, murdered during a weekend carjacking in Kenya, had strong ties to Western Pennsylvania.

Lois Anderson, 79, was a native of Beaver and her daughter, Zelda White, 52, was a graduate of Geneva College in Beaver Falls. Both died Saturday near Nairobi when gunmen attacked a U.S. embassy vehicle in which their families were traveling. Ms. White's husband is an employee of the U.S. embassy in Kenya.

Ms. Anderson had spent 49 years as a missionary in Africa -- primarily in Sudan -- with her husband, William, a graduate of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Both spoke annually for many years at the New Wilmington Mission Conference at Westminster College. They had retired to Clinton, S.C., but were in Kenya to visit family.

The shooting "wasn't targeted toward them. It was just a random act of violence," said the Rev. Donald Dawson, director of the World Mission Initiative at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and director of the New Wilmington conference. He has been in e-mail correspondence with surviving family members.

"They've been longtime people around the conference and everybody loved them -- Lois particularly because she had such an outgoing personality," he said.

More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.