On April 26, 1996, Page was sentenced to death in Forsyth County Superior Court for the murder of Stephen Levi Amos. The Winston-Salem police officer was shot Feb. 27, 1995 and died the next day.

1/12/2004 - U.S. Supreme Court denies Page's petition for a Writ of Certiorari. 

7/24/1997 - NC Supreme Court affirms the conviction and sentence of death.

4/26/1996 - George Page sentenced to death in Forsyth Superior Court for the murder of Winston-Salem Police Officer Stephen Amos.

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.