Editor’s note: At the request of the victims, no last names are used and Gail is an assumed name for the female victim.
For Tom and Gail, 1308 Patsy Albritton Street is no longer home.
In less than a week they have found a new place, the memories of the ordeal with a bank robbery suspect who shot himself and died this past weekend too hard, too painful, a reminder they could have been killed themselves last Thursday.
In the seven years they lived at 1308, there were four bank robberies. In those four years none of the suspects ever came to their house until Thursday. “I was watching TV,” Tom said. “Watching Cold Case.”
Gail was changing clothes in the bathroom. Neither knew there had been at bank robbery at First Citizens on Tenth Street shortly after 3:30 p.m. Thursday.
“The door got open. I thought I left the chain bolt on,” said Tom, thinking it was Gail’s son. “That’s what I thought it was. By the time I got up he had already pushed the door in. I told her to call 911. Before she could make the call he had a gun in my back, pushing me in the bathroom with a pistol saying, ‘I got a gun, I got a gun.’”
Nicholas Pierre Clark, the 28-year-old man who later shot himself in their house demanded the couple give him any phones in the house. “He ripped the phone out. The top of the phone is still in the bathroom I reckon.”
Gail said Clark didn’t do anything to her, only telling them to be quiet in the bathroom. “He kept coming to the door asking us if we were both all right.”
“He was polite,” Tom interjected.
Gail said Clark indicated he was going to leave the house.
“We thought he was robbing us, robbing the house,” Tom said. “I took my rings off and put them in my pocket. We kept waiting for him to ask us for money. One time he said he said he was going to put us in the attic.”
It wasn’t until the last hour of their approximately four hour ordeal that Clark ordered them to the attic.
Before then he asked where the scissors were and asked Gail to use them to cut a wig he apparently wore during the bank robbery and flush the pieces down the toilet. “It was a black wig. I cut it up and dropped some on the floor. He never came in the bathroom so we left some on the floor so the police could see it was a black wig,” Gail said.
Through the ordeal Clark kept telling the couple to be quiet, that he would be out of the house shortly.
Then Gail heard him talking to a friend on the phone. “He was talking to some guy and he asked why he was talking so low and tell Jessica — his wife — I love her and he continued to talk. He was talking about Presto, a barbershop. He didn’t mention any specific house but he said over there by Presto is a house.”
Clark did talk to Gail’s son, who told him the police, who just received a search warrant, were about to kick the door in. “When he was talking with (her son) he said I can shoot you mamma before the police get in and we didn’t know he only had one bullet.”
Sometime after 5 p.m. Clark led the couple to the attic. “Don’t get me wrong we were scared but that was as scared as we got,” Tom said. “I was scared he was going to shoot us in the attic. He told us to cover our faces. She had a wash rag over her face, I had my shirt over my face and hands over my eyes.”
Clark helped Gail up the attic stairs.
Asked what was going through their minds when they were in the attic Tom said, “Death. That was the only thing I thought was going to happen.”
Said Gail: “Life flashed before our eyes.”
Said Tom: “I thought he was going to shoot us in the attic and leave us there.”
At some point, the couple doesn’t know when, Clark left them in the attic and went downstairs. “We heard the walkie talkies out there for 15 minutes,” Tom said.
Then, Gail said, “Then the next thing we heard was ‘We got a search warrant, we got a search warrant. We’re coming in, we’re coming in.’ Glass started breaking.”
Police asked them to talk and the couple saw officers shining lights. “When the police finally did shine the light they started yelling to put our hands up,” Tom said.
Police escorted the couple out of the house and then went back inside. When officers confronted Clark he put his gun to head and shot himself. He died Saturday at Pitt Memorial Hospital in Greenville.
The stress remains for the couple, they said in the interview at their motel room. “We still wake up when we hear something drop,” Tom said.
While the couple had no idea the ordeal would end with Clark shooting himself, Tom said Gail did hear one conversation where the man said he didn’t think he was going to make it out.
The last trip the couple will make back to Patsy Albritton Street is to get their belongings for their move to a new place. “I think the main reason is because he shot himself in there,” Tom said.
Said Gail: “I don’t think I could look up to the TV and remember that’s where he shot himself.”
They made one trip to get their clothes and Tom said they didn’t feel comfortable being there.
Tom doesn’t agree with people who say Clark got what he deserved and he’s one less person the taxpayers would have to fund during a prison stay. “No,” he says. “I don’t like saying it, but the only thing I can say is I’m glad it wasn’t us. I feel sorry for the guy to do something like that to kill himself. I don’t like what he did. I have no hatred for the boy. I’m sorry he did it. He should have took off running like everybody else that robs a bank.”
The man murdered Sunday morning on Mobley Street died of blunt force trauma to the upper torso.
Lieutenant Bobby Martin of the Halifax County Sheriff’s Office said Michael Wayne Davis was struck multiple times. He declined to elaborate on a motive.
The man the sheriff’s office is seeking in Davis’s murder, Richard Charles Demello, lived with Davis, 47, for more than a month and a half. They met each other when they were in prison.
Demello, 54, has ties to Harnett County, Rhode Island and Missouri. He stole the victim’s car, a blue 1998 Dodge Neon possibly with a spoiler, and could possibly be headed north, south or west.
The license plate is YWZ-2442.
Demello is short with a thin build and has tattoos.
Anyone with information on Demello’s location is encouraged to contact the Halifax County Sheriff's Office at 252-583-8201 or Halifax County Crimestoppers at 252-583-4444.
Experts in environmental justice explained to members of the Lincoln Heights community how to organize and educate themselves on the proposed solid waste transfer station Roanoke Rapids is considering building.
“I was really impressed with tonight’s turnout and the invaluable information received concerning the negative environmental and social impact that the proposed waste transfer plant will have on both city and county residents who live within miles of the proposed facility,” said Florine Bell of the Lincoln Heights Community Development Coalition.
Gary Grant of Concerned Citizens of Tillery and the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network discussed the history of environmental racism in the state, the perceived practice of locating landfills, hog farms and transfer stations in or near minority communities. “Government and industry go to bed every night,” he said. “They work on things to improve the quality of life for somebody, just not for us.”
David Caldwell talked about his Orange County community’s fight against landfill while Steve Wing of the UNC Department of Epidemiology urged the residents to ask questions
Naeema Muhammad, an organizer for the network, said, “Economic development is one of my pet peeves. What a local government sees as economic development is not economic development to the ones who have to bear the burden.”
Roanoke Rapids Mayor Emery Doughtie told the audience there would be public hearings on the matter and that the city has looked at other areas besides the Hinson Street location where it is considering building the transfer station on public works property.
City Manager Paul Sabiston commended the panelists and the residents who asked questions. He also said there were differences between landfills and transfer stations. “We’re still in the early stages,” he said.
The latest revenue projections for the approximately $695,000 project show with a transfer station the city could see operating revenues over expenses of $282,814. Without a station that figure would be $180,742.
The projections are based on 28,000 tons per year with 7,200 coming from the city’s own solid waste and debris.
Financing options have also changed since the matter was first discussed with debt service being calculated on financing $700,000 over 20 years at an estimated percentage rate of 3.05 percent.
Financing for 20 years instead of 10 years contained in earlier documents would mean an annual debt service of $47,268.66.
The transfer station concept is to build a facility at the city’s maintenance yard where residential and commercial solid waste may be delivered and then transferred by independent haulers to a landfill.
The city’s own collection trucks and third party commercial haulers which pick up solid waste or choose to bring it from other areas will be the primary users, an earlier memo says.
Preliminary studies by the state Department of Transportation show Hinson Street, where the proposed station would be located, would not have to be improved if 100,000 tons a year were transported on it.
The city received $75,000 from Lafayette Gatling today on the lease payment for the Roanoke Rapids Theatre, Finance Director MeLinda Hite confirmed in an email.
The payment was received today at 1:30 p.m. by wire.
Consideration of the proposal to modify Lafayette Gatling’s payment on the Roanoke Rapids Theatre could come by next Tuesday’s city council work session.
City Manager Paul Sabiston said this morning negotiations with the Chicago businessman continue.
Sabiston announced following a closed session Thursday the city is discussing reducing the monthly payment from $98,000 to $75,000 from March 1 through October.
Following that period the payments would go back to the full amount in November and the difference would be caught up during that time.
Further details were not discussed following the announcement as the arrangements are still be negotiated.
The work session will be held at 5:15 p.m. in the first floor conference room of city hall.
A Weldon woman was treated for eight stab wounds following a fight Sunday night.
Lieutenant James Avens of the Weldon Police Department said the victim, Yolanda Edwards, 38, got into an argument at a house at 708 Maple Street. The person she got into the argument with, Shirley Jean Sanders, 51, allegedly grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed Edwards eight times in the chest, back and legs.
Avens said alcohol was being consumed when the argument started shortly before midnight. Sanders was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. She was jailed on $2,500 bond and has an April 14 court date.
The suspect in Thursday’s First Citizens bank robbery died Saturday, Roanoke Rapids Police Chief Jeff Hinton said.
Hinton said an autopsy on Nicholas Pierre Clark, 28, was performed Sunday. While he didn’t have the official results, Hinton said the autopsy confirmed Clark died from a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head as he holed up in a house at 1308 Patsy Albritton Street.
Meanwhile, Hinton said police are investigating a phone call from the Tenth Street launderette which detectives believe was a diversion to take officers away from the house Clark broke into following the bank robbery.
Someone called and told dispatchers their vehicle was stolen by a man wearing a wig. The description of the man was the same as the bank robber’s. “We determined it was a false call, an attempt to draw officers away from the house.”
The events that led Clark to shooting himself began when officers responded to a bank robbery at First Citizens on East Tenth Street shortly after 3:30 p.m.
A black male armed with a silver handgun dressed in dark clothes entered the bank and demanded money. He then fled on foot down adjacent Drake Street.
After a thorough search of the area police were led to a house at 1308 Patsy Albritton Street where money was located in the back yard and Clark’s sunglasses were found. Red stains from where a dye pack exploded were visible on the street.
Entry to the house was gained after obtaining a search warrant, Hinton said, and the two occupants of the house were located in the attic. Outside they informed police a black male armed with handgun was still in the house and had taken them hostage. Hinton said a subsequent search of the house led police to discover Clark hiding behind a dresser.
When confronted by police Clark shot himself in the head with his weapon. He was transported to Halifax Regional Medical Center and later flown to PItt.
Charges were filed against him for felonious breaking and entering, second degree kidnapping, possession of a firearm by felon and robbery with a dangerous weapon.
Clark had a criminal history that includes assault, common law robbery and speed to elude arrest.
While in prison he had several infractions including three counts of assault and being involved with gangs or security threat groups.
An upstairs bedroom fire damaged furniture and some personal belongings Sunday night at 923 Henry Street.
Fire Chief Gary Corbet said the fire department received the call shortly after 6:30. Firefighters saw smoke coming through a window. They did a search of the building and found no one inside.
The upstairs fire was quickly extinguished. It either started in a couch or a bed and it is believed misuse of smoking materials caused the blaze.
There was superficial damage to the room, Corbet said.
Consideration of the proposal to modify Lafayette Gatling’s payment on the Roanoke Rapids Theatre could come by next Tuesday’s city council work session.
City Manager Paul Sabiston said this morning negotiations with the Chicago businessman continue.
Sabiston announced following a closed session Thursday the city is discussing reducing the monthly payment from $98,000 to $75,000 from March 1 through October.
Following that period the payments would go back to the full amount in November and the difference would be caught up during that time.
Further details were not discussed following the announcement as the arrangements are still be negotiated.
The work session will be held at 5:15 p.m. in the first floor conference room of city hall.
Consideration of the proposal to modify Lafayette Gatling’s payment on the Roanoke Rapids Theatre could come by next Tuesday’s city council work session.
Two people from Connecticut died this morning in a single vehicle crash on Interstate 95.
