Gino Mora still gets chills when he thinks about the attack.

While he was knocking on a door to deliver pizza at a South Richmond apartment about three months ago, a man with a gun came out of the night and demanded money.

"I told him I was going to give him the money, but I also asked him to calm down," Mora said. "He started to threaten me with the gun. I tried to move the gun down with the pizza box. I tried to calm him down. Then I had no choice but to give him the money. I think I was lucky."

A native of Peru, Mora delivers pizza as a second job. He lives with his wife and two daughters near Forest Hill Avenue and Chippenham Parkway, just a short distance from the apartment complex in which he was robbed. The robber took everything he'd made that day: $45.

"I have been very nervous since. I get chills all the time now," Mora said in Spanish. "I am still in shock. You never know when you might be attacked. I have learned to always be cautious."

That lesson seems even more important in light of the recent death of a restaurant deliveryman in Fredericksburg.

Yong Hui Zhang, 24, was declared missing Thursday when he didn't return from making deliveries for his parents' restaurant, China Express. His body was found in Sussex County early Sunday morning. The cause of death was a stab wound to the chest, the medical examiner's office announced yesterday.

Suspects Jermaine Montgomery, 34, and Marcey White, 36, appeared in court yesterday in a Fredericksburg court on charges of abduction, carjacking, credit-card theft and conspiracy. The judge set Aug. 7 as a preliminary hearing date. The two had been arrested Saturday in Southampton County and transferred to the Rappahannock Regional Jail, where they made video appearances for the hearing.

In the metro Richmond area, holdups of food delivery employees account for only a handful of total robberies in the localities that had figures available yesterday.

In Richmond, out of 293 reported robberies of individuals this year, about nine involved a food delivery person, said city police Sgt. John Garcia.

Garcia, who runs the detective squad at the 2nd Precinct in South Richmond, said food delivery robberies often happen when someone orders food to an abandoned home and then ambushes the employee outside. Authorities believe Zhang was attacked at a vacant apartment after going to make a delivery there.

"Typically, what we see is, they will demand whatever the product is and whatever money they're carrying," Garcia said. Nine out of 10 times, he said, a robber brandishes a weapon or implies that there is one.

Police and restaurant managers make many of the same recommendations on how to reduce the odds of being robbed.

Garcia recommends that businesses make sure they get a phone number, a complete name and a correct address when taking orders, and refuse to deliver food to intersections or other outdoor areas.

If a driver arrives at a house that looks abandoned or rundown, Garcia said, they should obey their instincts and drive to a safe place and try calling the customer again. A would-be robber probably won't answer the phone.

Melissa Walker, assistant manager at Domino's Pizza on Belvidere Street downtown, said her drivers never carry more than $20 to make change.

If someone new places an order, the person gets a security call-back to make sure the address is accurate and that the order is correct. If the security call goes into voice mail, the pizza doesn't leave the store until the call is returned.

At Joy Garden, which has operated for 50 years on Broad Street as a dine-in Chinese restaurant, drivers deliver an average of seven or eight orders a night in midtown and downtown neighborhoods, manager Mark Sin said.

"We always recommend the driver observe before you get out of the car. If it doesn't feel right, don't deliver. Just take off. . . . It can happen anywhere, in a safe place or dangerous place."

Contact Katherine Calos at (804) 649-6433 or kcalos@timesdispatch.com.

Staff writers Reed Williams and Luz Lazo contributed to this report.