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Roberts-Joseph was last seen alive visiting her sister about 11 a.m. on Friday. Her body was discovered in her car a little over three miles from her home about 3:45 p.m. on Friday, police and relatives said.

\"We do know the time when she was last seen and the time, obviously, when the body was discovered. We're working on that time frame and we're focusing in on what happened between that time,\" Paul said.

The slaying of Roberts-Joseph, who was well known in Baton Rouge, came as a complete shock for her family and the community.

\"We're devastated that someone has actually killed her and put her in the trunk of her own car,\" Roberts-Joseph's niece, Pat McCallister-Leduff, told ABC News.

The victim's sister, Beatrice Johnson, told The Advocate newspaper of Baton Rouge that Roberts-Johnson stopped by her house around 11 a.m. on Friday. She said her sister lived near her in the Scotlandville neighborhood of Baton Rouge and would check in with her daily.

\"Friday, she came by [because] she had mixed some cornbread, but her oven went out, and she brought it here to put in the oven,\" Johnson told the newspaper. \"The bread is still there. She never came back to get it.\"

Roberts-Joseph founded the Odell S. Williams Now and Then African-American History Museum in 2001. The museum, now known as the Baton Rouge African-American History Museum, is housed on the campus of New St. Luke Baptist Church in Baton Rouge.

She also organized the city's annual Juneteenth festival at the museum, commemorating the day slaves were belatedly freed in Texas more than two years after Emancipation Proclamation was signed. She also partnered with Baton Rouge police to launch a Community Against Drugs and Violence program.

In a recent interview with ABC affiliate station WBRZ in Baton Rouge, Roberts-Joseph said her work at the museum and the annual Juneteenth event was meant \"to celebrate, to embrace\" African American history and to \"learn of our past and to be able to move forward in unity.\"

Baton Rouge police are asking anyone with information on the case to contact homicide detectives immediately.

\"I have no idea why someone would do such a heinous act or commit such a heinous act for someone who had nothing but love for this community and love for people,\" Baton Rouge Mayor Sharon Weston Broome told ABC News.

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