FARMINGTON – Sadie Martin stood in front of a walk-in refrigerator Monday, acting out what happened when robbers tried to force her and her husband, Ken, inside it while robbing their store Friday.

“I was shaking and nervous,” she said. “I panicked and started running toward the back door, fumbling with the locks.”

The robbers – two women who looked to be in their early 20s and 30s – had come in to Ken and Sadie’s Country Store about 4:30 p.m and wandered around, before one walked up to the sandwich counter as if to place an order, while the other went outside, Martin said.

“I thought she was going to get money,” she said.

But when the woman came back in the store, she yelled for the Martins to get in the back of the store in a loud voice. “I was thinking ‘This is my store,'” Martin said. The woman told her she had a gun, and would shoot if the Martins didn’t do as told. Martin saw a flash of black in the woman’s hand, and believed her.

After running from the refrigerator, Ken pushed her into a bathroom and was pushed in behind her by the woman with the gun, Martin said. There, she began crying, while Ken held her.

All right, all right, he told her. He was scared, too, though.

“I mean, they were threatening our lives,” Ken Martin said.

The woman with the gun told them if they came out of the bathroom, she’d shoot. Then she called out to the other robber. “‘Are you done cleaning them out?’ she said,” remembered Sadie.

Before she left, the woman guarding the bathroom door apologized to the two.

“I’m sorry, but my baby needs diapers,” she remembered.

A few minutes later it was over. “I was crying and shaking all over,” Sadie said. Her husband slowly opened the bathroom door and looked out. Then he walked to the front of the store and dialed 9-1-1.

After they tallied everything up, they found the women had stolen about $700 in cash from the register, plus a few scratch tickets and maybe a carton of cigarettes.

The Martins are mystified, wondering why the women would have resorted to stealing. If they needed help, the Martin’s would have given them diapers or food, Sadie said.

Police followed up on what leads they had on Monday, Farmington officer Nathan Reid said. As the third robbery in the area in less than a month, it’s pretty surprising, Reid said.

“We’ve had as many in the last month as in my entire time here,” he said, of his nearly five years in the department.

The Martins minded the store, but without the comfort they used to have. They don’t leave each other alone in the store to go run errands like they used to.

“I’m still nervous, very nervous,” Martin said. “I watch everybody that comes in.”