Man charged in connection with two Winston-Salem deaths, victims ID'd | Crime

The last time Alicia Craig saw her brother, Gary Craig Jr., he was excited to show her his new apartment in Winston-Salem.

She never got to see the apartment that her younger brother moved to in February. He was found dead near the apartment in July.

“I kept saying ‘I’m gonna come by,’ but I never had a chance and that’s what hurt me so much,” she said. “He moved here to be closer to me. It was a new beginning for him.”

The new beginning came to a tragic end, Craig said. The remains of Gary Craig, 35, and his girlfriend Devette Caretta Campbell, 40, were found rolled up in carpet in a wooded area behind the Willow Creek apartment complex at 100 Stagecoach Road on July 17. Worried family members had asked police to do a welfare check on the couple, who hadn’t been seen for several days.

Tyrone Donte Gladden, 45, was arrested with the assistance of the U.S. Marshals Service on Aug. 10 and has been charged with two counts of concealing a death in connection to human remains.

Gladden, of North 17th Street in Albemarle, was being held at the Forsyth County Jail under a $500,000 bond.

Alicia Craig said her brother, who was a father of five daughters, lived with Campbell and Gladden. She had never met Gladden, but when her son met him, she remembers him describing Gladden as small in stature. Her brother, she said, was a big guy. She last saw her brother in June.

Police have not disclosed a cause of death for the two victims and could not confirm how the three knew each other.

“They did know each other. This wasn’t a random act,” Lt. Mike Cardwell of the Winston-Salem Police Department said. “We’re still working on the homicide investigation and still building evidence to support the murder charges.”

No one had been charged with murder as of Thursday, but the police department is not seeking any other suspects, Cardwell said.

Because of the warm weather accelerating the rate of decomposition, it was unclear how long the remains had been outside the apartment complex, police said.

Una Campbell, the mother of Devette Campbell, posted on Facebook that her daughter, a Mount Tabor graduate and mother, had been missing since Father’s Day weekend.

“Gone but will never be forgotten. I shared some great moments with my niece as she was growing up,” Campbell’s aunt, Katrina W. Campbell, posted on Facebook. “Very inspiring and everybody loves her...Una you did a great job. It is well with God.”

Both victims’ families set up GoFundMe pages to help with funeral expenses and expressed their heartbreak on social media.

“My brother has five beautiful girls that are going to miss him as well. Lost my sister to homicide, and now my brother,” Craig’s sister, Tomeka Galbreath, posted on Facebook. “Trying to stay strong because I have work to do in getting him back home, to be buried properly, and not thrown in some woods like trash.”

Alicia Craig said she’s still trying to cope with the loss, finding solace only in the thought of Gladden being locked away, she said.

Her brother played football growing up, loved to eat and was excited about his job at a furniture store. She recalled long talks that usually resulted in them laughing endlessly.

“He was a gentleman. He always had a way of meeting people. He was very friendly, family-oriented and kind-hearted,” she said. “For someone to do what this person did, it breaks my heart.”