After arrests in her brother’s murder, sister remembers a devoted father, contagious laugh
When she heard the news that someone had been charged with her brother’s murder four months after his death, Sherey Terry had a hard time believing it.
“We were hoping it was someone else,” she said.
Her brother, Joshua Reed Paige, 26, was shot on April 11 around 4:30 a.m. outside his uncle’s home on Southside Boulevard, Beaufort County Coroner David Ott told the Island Packet at the time.
The Beaufort Police Department has charged three men in Paige’s death, the department said in a press release last week. Baron Brown-Lights, 28, of Burton, and Isaac Smalls, 33, of Lady’s Island, were charged with conspiracy, accused of luring Paige to the home where police say Paul Washington Jr., 34, shot him.
Washington was arrested on Hilton Head last Monday, the press release said.
The three men charged were her brother’s friends, Terry said.
“If you look on Josh’s Facebook page, Paul is in about 60% of the videos,” Terry said. “Paul was everywhere he was. He looked out for them.”
As the baby of the family, her brother was “everything” to them, she said. As his big sister, she’d been allowed to choose his name. He had a contagious laugh, and he got away with things his older siblings never had. When he was a child, Terry said, her brother loved to watch wrestling on TV and play “hooky” to get out of school.
“He was sneaky,” she said. “He could do anything, and my mom would just let him.”
Terry said neighbors could hear her mother up and down Southside Boulevard calling for him. As an adult, she said, he was a devoted father of 11, an “extrovert x 10” and a big fan of country music. Even though she was older, that didn’t stop him from telling her what to do or from giving her nicknames.
“He thought he was my daddy and big brother,” Terry said.
Paige had no beef with the men charged in his killing, according to Terry. She has to remind herself how he died, she said, after avoiding the grisly details for months.
“I never wanted to know how many shots were fired,” Terry said. “I finally got up the nerve ... I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep wondering if he suffered.”
The loss, she said, is most difficult for their mother, whose oldest son, Frank Holmes, died 11 months before Paige from a brain aneurysm. Terry doesn’t think she will ever feel closure, she said, but the arrests mean her family can begin grieving.
“Josh lived life to the fullest,” Terry said. “And Josh was not done yet.”
This story was originally published September 5, 2021 at 9:06 AM.
