Mayor Emery Doughtie believes the state looks more closely about how different municipalities interact with each other.

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From RRSD press release

The Roanoke Rapids Sanitary District is reporting a spill of approximately 3,600 gallons of wastewater Friday.

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Editor’s note: Tyrone Williams is not seeking reelection to the Halifax County Board of Education. This is his letter explaining why.

In 2006, I ran for reelection to the Halifax County Board of Education for a 4th 4 year term. One of my primary motivators was to work hard towards the building of a new Inborden/Enfield School. At that time the project was in serious jeopardy.  I was appointed by the board chairman to serve, along with Dr. Donna Hunter to a mediation committee to hammer out a deal with a committee from the Halifax County Board of Commissioners.  After several meetings, entailing several long hours and some very spirited debate, Dr. Hunter and I were able to come to a workable agreement with the county’s committee to make the new Inborden/Enfield School a reality. I am extremely proud to have played a very integral part in that beautiful, educational sound facility for our boys and girls.  In December 2007, we all cut the ribbon on this grand facility.

In late 2007, the majority of the board thought that the board needed new direction in the wake of the dire financial situation that we found ourselves in.  At the November 2007 board meeting, the board selected me as “acting chairman” of the board of education.  Though somewhat reluctant, I agreed to step up to the task of attempting to lead our school system out of the situation that was taking our focus away from student achievement.  Moving quickly, I was able to establish and revitalize several committees and plans (with the support of the board) to move us forward.  An audit committee was formed; a special committee to develop a new, more effective evaluation tool to assess the superintendent was formed,   and the finance committee revamped.  Several other initiatives to move us forward were instituted as well.   There has been much heavy lifting required over the past two years as acting Chairman and then Chairman.  I am proud to have provided leadership during this difficult time.

When Judge Howard Manning charted the course for our school system, I worked with Dr. Bill Harrison, Dr. June Atkinson and others to provide input and to implement our current partnership with the Department of Public Instruction. This truly is a partnership and should be viewed in that manner if we are to succeed and make our schools world class. It will take a lot of continued hard work by all of our communities and stakeholders.

Therefore, after 4 terms (16 years), it is time to move on. This will not be the end of my public service as I was taught by my parents, that “service is the price that we pay for freedom”.   I have been blessed and fortunate to have been able to lend my time, talents and experience to the boys and girls and citizens of Halifax County. I count it a privilege to have served and leave simply knowing that the school system is in good hands at the leadership levels. We now have the right leader in Dr. Elease Frederick at the helm.  Ms. Debbie Hardy is the right leader to heal the battle scars over the past several years and set the tone for the years to come.  May God Bless Halifax County Schools.  Thank you for allowing me to serve.  You are truly one of the great loves of my life

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.