Grief connects grandfather, dad of shooting victims

At a candlelight vigil for his slain daughter, Chris Samuel of Detroit had no idea who the white-haired man in khakis and boat shoes approaching him was.

The man was with a woman. They were white and stood out in the largely African-American crowd.

"My name is Dave Lawrence," the man told Samuel, reaching out his hand. "I'm here to give you support."

Stunned, Samuel immediately recognized the man's name. Lawrence was the grandfather of Grosse Pointe teenager Paige Stalker, the honors student who was shot and killed Dec. 22 on Detroit's east side, two days before his daughter, Christina Samuel, 22, was gunned down.

"I was overwhelmed," said Samuel, who had followed the Stalker killing closely. "I couldn't believe that he was reaching out at his time of grief."

The two have been inseparable since.

Over the last five weeks, they have forged a unique friendship, both intent on finding the killers of Paige and Christina and ending violence, especially in Detroit.

And so they meet, almost every day, at various coffeehouses and restaurants, plotting, planning, crusading. Though they share a common pain and goal, they come from two different worlds.

Lawrence, 71, is a Grosse Pointe Park businessman whose company supplies brakes for city buses all over the country, including the entire New York City fleet. He lives in a stately brick colonial, mingles with the social elite and sent his children to Ivy League schools.

About a mile away, on the other side of Mack Avenue, lives Samuel, 53, a security officer with 11 children, all of them grown. Christina, a recent college graduate who was about to start law school, was the baby. He lives in a small house near Balduck Park and has held various jobs over the years, including janitorial work, lawn and snow removal.

Samuel is soft-spoken and mild-mannered. Lawrence is larger than life, loves to talk and has a wicked sense of humor.

But underneath, they said, they are the same.

"He may be a prominent guy. I might be an average Joe. But we have the same hearts, the same pain," said Samuel, adding race means nothing to him. "People will look at us. He's white. He's black. But at the end of the day, we're both human beings with heavy, heavy hearts."

Fortunately, Samuel said, Lawrence has a sense of humor, which can lighten things up.

"Not only is he a funny man, he's a great guy," Samuel said while patting Lawrence's back over lunch at a Panera in Grosse Pointe this week. "My wife says I got a good new friend."

Lawrence feels the same.

"When I'm with Chris, I feel at peace," Lawrence said. "I just don't feel alone when I'm with Chris."

Samuel also understands his pain, said Lawrence, who fought tears while talking about Paige over lunch. All the while, Samuel patted him on the back, saying, "It's OK. It's OK, Dave."

Lawrence looked up: "Chris is my rock."

Madness must stop

Samuel said he followed Paige's death closely. He was stunned and devastated when he learned that someone opened fire on a group of Grosse Pointe teenagers as they sat in a car at Charlevoix and Philip, and that one girl died: an honors student who wanted to become a doctor. It was Paige.

Samuel remembered thinking to himself: "What a shame that somebody has to bury a child over the holidays."

About 48 hours later, he would share that same fate.

Just before midnight Dec. 24, Christina was fatally shot while sitting in a car on Carlisle Street near Gratiot and 8 Mile. She was with a childhood friend when two people in hoodies approached the car and opened fire. Christina died at the scene. Her friend survived.

Christina's killer remains on the loose. So does Paige's.

Police said they think both victims were shot by accident, that the bullets were meant for someone else.

This madness, both men said, has got to stop.

Over the last month, Lawrence and Samuel have teamed up with community activist Minister Malik Shabazz. The three have held prayer vigils together and passed out flyers door-to-door in run-down Detroit neighborhoods, hoping someone knows something and fesses up.

Remembering Paige

Most recently, the three men united Wednesday in downtown Grosse Pointe, when about 300 people gathered for a birthday celebration in for Paige, who would have turned 17 that day. Bagpipes played "Amazing Grace," and the crowd released pink and green balloons in the air with messages for Paige attached. Pink and green were her favorite colors.

Lawrence and Samuel stood side by side, holding their candles as Shabazz stunned the quiet Grosse Pointe crowd with his booming voice and emotional speech about blacks and whites coming together to end violence.

"We are living in a violent society. The abnormal has become normal," Shabazz said, stressing 16-year-old honor students like Paige and college graduates like Christina should not die from gunfire. "It's not normal. It's not acceptable ... We have to say enough is enough."

Lawrence and Samuel got the message.

"These were two wonderful, wonderful girls," Lawrence said. "Christina was going to be a lawyer. Paige was going to be a doctor. And they took that away."

The birthday celebration delivered one bit of good news: The city of Detroit has approved a park being built along Alter Road, and naming it after Paige and Christina.

For Lawrence and Samuel, the park is one way to keep their loved ones' memories alive. Making Detroit and the suburbs safer is another.

They don't want the deaths of Paige and Christina to be in vain. They want some good to come from the bad, so they're organizing anti-violence marches and vigils with the hope of spreading peace and love. One anti-violence march is set for April 5, at Mack Avenue and 7 Mile.

"We have to come together," Samuel said of Detroiters and suburbanites. "This is the only way we can get our city back. Our city is a dying weed."

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com