Police: Fayetteville triple homicide not random

Shawn Lee Legrand, 44, faces three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder and four counts of first-degree kidnapping.

Police officers responded to a reported burglary at 288 Ingram St. Saturday morning and found Ardell Paige Jr., 33, and Krystle Price Papile, 26, dead and three others wounded.

One of the wounded, Gregory Steven Fitzgerald, 37, died at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center. The other two, Stephanie Lashaun Croom, 30, and Bennie Darwin King, 50, remain hospitalized.

Paige and Papile were tied up, and Fitzgerald was bound and gagged but managed to escape from the triplex, according to court documents.

Sgt. Steven Bates and Officer Travis Smith spotted a vehicle matching the description of one seen leaving Ingram Street and gave chase until the vehicle crashed into a fence at 216 C St. and the driver took off running. The officers fired at the man when they encountered him carrying a handgun in a nearby yard.

Warrants state that Legrand was trying to fire on the two police officers when he was shot. He remains hospitalized, but his condition isn't known.

Although Croom and King told police that Legrand broke in and held all five people at gunpoint, investigators said they have determined that there wasn't a break-in. Legrand knew at least one person who lived there, police said.

A neighbor who claims to know the Legrand family, told WRAL News on Monday that Legrand and Paige are cousins.

Police said Paige had been living in the home with King for about two months and that, based on information collected so far, it appears that Legrand went to the triplex and confronted and killed one of them and then attacked the other three as they came by the home.

Investigators haven't yet established a motive for the attack.

Bates, a 10-year veteran of the Fayetteville Police Department, and Smith, who has been with the department for two years, have been placed on administrative leave with pay, pending a State Bureau of Investigation review of their shooting of Legrand. Such moves are standard procedure in officer-involved shootings.

Legrand was released from prison in July after being incarcerated for over 23 years, according to state Department of Correction records.

He was convicted of assault inflicting serious injury, common-law robbery, burglary, breaking and entering and larceny for 1987 crimes. His sentence was lengthened after he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury for an offense committed while imprisoned.