A killer's death revives memories of victim's fine life

On the day he heard that his oldest son's killer had died, Stephen Amos visited his son's grave to give him the news.

"I told him … that the jury never did get a chance to finish what it started, but the Lord did," Amos said.

George Franklin Page, who had a chronic heart condition and other health problems, died earlier this month. He was on Death Row at Raleigh's Central Prison for the 1995 killing Stephen Levi Amos II, a Winston-Salem police officer. He shot Amos with a high-powered rifle after Amos and his partner, on their way to training, responded to a call to back up other officers at Hill Top Ridge Apartments. Page was holed up there, shooting his gun. Amos, a 24-year-old newlywed, was hit in the chest as he stepped out of his patrol car that February day.

A psychiatrist and a psychologist testified at his trial that they believed that Page, an Army truck mechanic in the Vietnam War, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2004, defense lawyers produced evidence that there were signs of atrophy in Page's brain at the time of the killing. But there never has been a clear explanation for why he started shooting.

One thing is certain. Page's senseless act took a good man from a good family. Four generations of Amoses have lived on the same farm in the Walkertown area. Stephen Amos, the police officer's father, came back to the farm in 1979 when he transferred from active duty in the Marines to the Reserve. He and his wife, Ginger, wanted to raise their two boys, Stephen and Wendell, among family and friends, where they'd have a strong sense of community. "Not everybody can experience that," Ginger Amos said.

Stephen was the oldest. He grew to be almost 6 feet 3 inches tall and more than 200 pounds, but he was known as "Little Stephen" on the farm. His father is known as "Big Stephen." The younger Stephen loved to work with horses. He became a police officer to emulate his father's military service.

The father and the rest of the family were proud of Stephen II, and devastated by his death. They endured all the pre-trial hearings, the trial and all the subsequent news about Page's appeals. They believe he deserved the death penalty. At the time of Page's death, that sentence was a long way from ever being carried out.

The family said community support got them through their son's slaying. So did honoring Stephen II's memory. "Even in our sorrow, we can hold onto the thought that a life lived with so much love never really ends, but goes on forever in the hearts of those who remember, as we always will," the father wrote in a letter to the Journal.

Wendell Amos, who also lives on the farm, joined the Thomasville Police Department. The family finished a barn Stephen had started, and kept his photos prominently displayed. Ginger Amos helped start a group to remember her son and other Forsyth officers killed in the line of duty. And now that Wendell's children are old enough, the family is telling them an abbreviated story of what happened to their uncle.

Among the things they're not telling the children about is the sense of frustration about the unfairness of their uncle's loss.

Stephen Amos II planned on building a house near his parents, and he and his dad used to joke about how they'd one day rock on their porches and call across to each other. They should be doing that now. Stephen would be 38 now, no doubt with his own children growing up on the farm with Wendell's children.

Stephen's death left a hole that the family can never fill. That realization came rushing back with Page's death.

So on the day he got the news, "Big Stephen" Amos, as he often does, visited his son's grave, just down the road at Morris Chapel United Methodist Church. And when he was done talking to his son, he joined his wife for a turkey-shoot fundraiser for the Walkertown Civic Club, an activity and cause that Stephen II had loved.

His family carries on with sad but sweet memories. "We're so glad that we had Stephen for the 24 years that we did," his mother said. "That's what's gotten us through."

■ John Railey writes editorials for the Journal. He can be reached at jrailey@wsjournal.com.