Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 27, 1990 TAG: 9005270264
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Branch, 41, was on his way to pick up a newspaper one year ago this morning when a chance encounter drew him to the scene of an execution-style killing in an upstairs apartment of the house.
Two young women were shot in the head and killed after a night of partying and smoking crack cocaine apparently led to a dispute over who would pay for the drugs.
The assailant then turned his gun on two witnesses - Branch and 27-year-old Joyce Laverne Washington. Branch was shot three times in the abdomen and once in the shoulder; Washington was hit in the neck.
Thomas Manuel "T.J." Paige, 23, has been charged with the capital murders of Debra Jean Salters, 20, and Sylvia LaVern Baker, 18. He also faces two counts of malicious wounding. Authorities may seek the death penalty for Paige.
But first, they must find him.
Ever since a man was seen running from the apartment in the early morning light, Paige has been running from the law.
An all-night cocaine party at Debra Salter's Staunton Avenue apartment lasted into the early morning hours of May 27, 1989.
Anita Murray, who lived below Salter's upstairs apartment at the time, said she was kept up most of the night by laughing and loud voices.
The partying went on until dawn - about the time that Wilfred Branch stepped out of his house 14 blocks away and discovered that his morning paper was missing.
On his way to a convenience store to buy a paper, Branch ran into an acquaintance, Joyce Washington.
Branch offered Washington a ride to her home in the Lincoln Terrace housing project. But he ended up dropping her off at Salter's apartment, where she had been earlier in the morning.
"She said, `Why don't you come in for a while,' " Branch remembered in an interview last week. "I was thinking to myself about it being so early in the morning, but I figured: Why not?"
Once inside, Branch exchanged greetings with Salters, whom he knew. "Then we're standing there when a door opens and out comes a man and a woman," he said.
The man was Manuel Paige, although Branch didn't know that at the time. What he remembers the most is that the man, who wore a surgeon's shirt, was 6 feet 5 - an inch taller than Branch.
"I said to him: `It's nice to see somebody eye to eye' and he said: `Yeah, I know what you mean,' " Branch said.
Although Branch said that Paige's companion - who he later learned was Sylvia Baker - had a "strange look" on her face, Paige "showed no signs of hostility or anything negative," he said.
Paige, Salters and Baker went back into the living room and closed the door. A few minutes later, Branch said, "I heard what I thought was a car backfire."
Looking out of a window for a car, Branch saw only a deserted street. "I got a real bad feeling and I said to Joyce: `Let's get out of here,' " he said.
But when he opened the door, Paige and Salters were standing in the doorway, shoulder to shoulder. They blocked the view into the living room, where Baker was slumped in a chair with a bullet wound to her head.
In Paige's hand was a chrome-plated pistol.
Branch asked: "You guys having a problem? Why do you have the gun?"
The man raised his gun and shot Salters in the face, Branch said. He remembers seeing the soles of her shoes fly up as she recoiled from the impact.
"I'd seen enough Clint Eastwood movies to know that it was time for me to react," Branch said. He and Washington ran into a bedroom and slammed the door behind them.
But the man followed, firing a shot through the door that struck Branch in the stomach. "I looked at Joyce and said: `What's going on? This dude just shot Debra in the face,' " Branch said.
By that time, the assailant was trying to force his way through the door. He managed to get his arm and the gun inside the room before Branch jammed the door on his arm.
Branch yelled for Washington to knock the gun out of the man's hand. She tried. Another shot was fired, so close to Branch that he felt the heat brush across his forehead. The shot hit Washington in the neck and sent her tumbling over a bed.
And then the man was inside the room. As Branch crumpled against the wall, he shot three more times - hitting him twice in the abdomen and once in the shoulder.
"Then he seemed to relax and straighten up," Branch said. After pausing for a second, the man raised the gun to shoot Branch again.
The hammer clicked against an empty chamber. And the gunman - who had said nothing and shown no expression throughout the incident - turned and left the room, Branch said.
Directly below, in the downstairs bedroom of Anita Murray's son, blood seeped from the ceiling and dripped onto the carpet.
The search continues
The file on Thomas Paige that sat on Major J.L. Viar's desk at the Roanoke Police Department is several inches thick.
"We've had a number of calls about where he might be, but nothing has been successful," Viar said last week.
Since the manhunt began, Paige was been listed on the Most Wanted List compiled by Virginia State Police. Neighboring jurisdictions and the FBI have been alerted to be on the watch for him.
In the past year, police have tracked down leads that Paige may have been in Georgia and California, Viar said. Both trails turned up cold.
Police also have received reports that Paige is hiding out somewhere on Bent Mountain, and Branch said he has heard that the fugitive fled to Jamaica.
Sgt. A. Stan Smith and Detective Robert Foster, who have investigated the case for the past year, believe that Paige supplied the crack that was used the night of the killing.
The shooting happened after "a problem came up due to Paige feeling that he was not paid properly for the drugs," a police news release states.
After Paige fled the scene, one of Salter's three young children - who had been sleeping in a bedroom - discovered her mother's body and ran to a neighbor's home to call police.
Joel Branscom, a Roanoke assistant commonwealth's attorney who hopes to prosecute Paige some day, is still waiting.
"We all thought he would have turned up by now," Branscom said.
Scars slowly healing
After a year of treatment for a gunshot wound to the shoulder, Wilfred Branch can finally move his left arm. But he still must wear a brace, and he attends physical therapy sessions every week.
Although his injuries almost are healed, the incident has not been forgotten.
"You're talking about nightmares, you're talking about cold sweats and you're talking about waking up in the middle of the night and hearing sounds in the house," Branch said.
As a material witness in a capital murder case with the suspect still at large, Branch has taken to keeping his doors locked and staying at home a lot.
"It's kind of spooky," he said. "But it took me about four months to realize that you have to get on with your life. You can't hibernate; you can't assume that everyone you meet is out to get you."
But little things still gnaw at his memory. Like a friendship his daughter has struck with a young man named T.J., the same nickname that Paige has.
Branch, who grew up in a Newark, N.J., housing project and later earned a college degree, still has trouble believing what happened to him - and where it happened.
"I've been a lot of places," he said. "And the last place I thought I'd take four hits to the body was in Roanoke."
Thomas Manuel Paige Jr., is 6 feet 5 and about 200 pounds. A reward of up to $1,000 is being offered for information that leads to his arrest. Anyone with information can call 344-8500.
by CNB