HILLSBOROUGH -- Two men charged with killing two friends and robbing a store in rural Orange County this week were on probation.
The Orange County Sheriff's Office and State Bureau of Investigation charged Curtis Kantawiti White Jr., 18, of 5922 Allie Mae Road, Cedar Grove, and Ladell Alverez Faucette, 22, of 5138 Apsley Drive, McLeansville, with first-degree murder and robbery with a dangerous weapon.
Both have been charged also with one count each of robbery with a dangerous weapon in a separate armed robbery reported Tuesday at Sam's Food Mart, 6321 U.S. 70 West, Mebane, also in Orange County.
Faucette and White are accused in the fatal shooting Wednesday afternoon of Phillip Johnson, 52, and Alexander "Skip" Wade, 68, at the Week in Treasures store on Mill Creek Road in Cedar Grove. When sheriff's deputies responded to a 911 call about 4 p.m., they found the store's owner, Johnson, dead from multiple gunshot wounds. Wade, a retired Orange County investigator, was breathing but unconscious. He died later at Duke Hospital.
The store's cash register drawer was missing.
Faucette and White are on probation for other crimes. Faucette was sentenced to 36 months in January 2011 after being convicted in Alamance County of stealing a motor vehicle. White was sentenced in August to 18 months after an Orange County conviction for misdemeanor possession of stolen goods and possessing drug paraphernalia. Both sentences were suspended pending community service and probation.
Arrested in jail
Faucette, according to Keith Acree, spokesman for the state Department of Correction, was in Alamance County court Thursday for a hearing on whether his probation should be revoked for missing five appointments with his probation officer and not keeping up with court-ordered payments related to the auto larceny case. The probation officer began revocation proceedings in mid-December, Acree said.
Faucette was jailed that day in Alamance County for violating probation and ordered to serve 90 days. He was arrested on the murder charges Friday while in jail.
Orange County sheriff's officials said the investigation is continuing, and they are not commenting on the arrests.
Another man was slain at the same store in 2004, but investigators said the crimes may not be related. Bill King, who operated the then-bait and tackle shop and country store, was shot and killed during a robbery. That case was never solved.
Officers commended
Wade's family was preparing for his funeral Friday and said the arrests have brought them a sense of "relief."
Xan Wade, 34, said he didn't know the suspects, but other family members did. They are grateful for officers' quick work, he said.
"They did exactly what he would have expected of them," Xan Wade said. "Even after his retirement, you couldn't say anything bad about law enforcement (around Wade). They proved him to be right."
Wade was an Orange County deputy for more than 20 years, joining the force in 1978.
His viewing will be from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. today at Chavis-Parker Funeral Home, 405 N.C. 57, Hillsborough. Visitation will be from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Sunday at Mount Zion AME Church, 5124 N.C. 86, Hillsborough. Funeral services will follow, and Wade will be buried Monday in the Clark Family Cemetery.
Funeral arrangements for Johnson were not available. His wife and family have been unavailable for comment, although Wade's family said they did stop by to visit Friday. The two men were close friends who played pool together for fun and in regional and national American Poolplayers Association competitions, family and friends said. When he wasn't fishing, Wade often could be found hanging out with Johnson at the store, which he and his wife owned, they said.
The men are believed to have been shot between 2 and 4 p.m. Wednesday, according to Sheriff's Office Maj. Charles Blackwood. A woman who stopped by to pick up Wade shortly before 4 p.m. told deputies she found the men lying on the floor and blood all around, Blackwood said. She left the store and called 911.
Staff writer Anne Blythe contributed to this report.
