USA (North Carolina) George
Franklin Page (m), white, aged 63
Amnesty.org
George Page is scheduled to be executed in North
Carolina at 2am local time on 27 February 2004. He was sentenced to
death for the murder of Police Officer Stephen Amos in 1995.
On the morning of 27 February
1995, police officers were called to the scene of a shooting in Winston-Salem.
When they arrived, they found that George Page had fired several shots
from the window of his apartment using a high-powered rifle. He fired
more shots, one of which ricocheted through two car windows before
striking Officer Amos in the chest, fatally wounding him.
An officer who was a crisis
negotiator spoke by telephone with George Page who said he wanted to
speak with his psychologist and his psychiatrist, under whose treatment
he had been for various mental disorders for some time. Following
further negotiations, George Page agreed to leave his weapon and go with
his
psychiatrist and the officer to the psychologist’s office. He was taken
into custody shortly thereafter.
George Page served 16 years in the military,
including in the Vietnam War. He has a history of mental problems and
alcoholism. He reportedly said at the time of the shooting that he was
surrounded by soldiers who were shooting at him, a possible sign of a
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) flashback. The trial jury was told
by the state psychiatrist that Page did not have combat-related PTSD
because he served as a mechanic in Vietnam and had not been in combat.
Nevertheless, his military records reportedly show that he was stationed
in an area of active conflict. Research suggests that soldiers in
various occupations can suffer PTSD.
George Page’s former wife has stated in an
affidavit that "when George returned from Vietnam, he had completely
changed…When he got back, he was really standoffish and he just didn’t
get close to people again. After he returned from Vietnam, there were
many times when I would wake up in the middle of the night and George
wouldn’t be in the bedroom. I would get up and would find him in the
kitchen. He would usually be drinking. He would be sitting on the floor
and crying…The next morning, he would never remember what had happened…Something
traumatic must have happened to George while he was in Vietnam. He very
rarely talked about his time in Vietnam but he seemed to be tortured by
those experiences". She did not testify at the trial because she was not
contacted by his lawyers. In her affidavit she states: "I wish I had
been able to talk to George’s trial attorneys and to the jury that
decided George’s fate. George had become a completely different man
after he went to Vietnam".
In another affidavit, George Page’s daughter has
recalled that there were times "when he seemed to have lost his mind and
not know what was happening…I clearly remember this one time when my
father started hollering, ‘I got him Charlie. I got him, Charlie.’…After
he calmed down, he didn’t remember what had happened". She was not
contacted by the trial lawyers either. George Page’s son-in-law, who did
testify at the trial, has stated in an affidavit that he "didn’t get a
chance to tell the jury about…episodes that made it clear to me that
George had serious mental health problems". In another affidavit, George
Page’s brother-in-law has recalled an incident when Page suddenly "jumped
up from his chair and ran out of the house. He was yelling, ‘They’re
going to kill me’".
A mental health expert who
recently evaluated George Page concluded that he suffers from PTSD and
bipolar disorder (manic depressive illness). George Page’s mental health
records indicate suicide attempts and treatment for major depression. He
has been prescribed medication, including drugs used to treat bipolar
disorder, throughout his time on death row. He has had an unblemished
disciplinary record on death row.
