Curtis Kantawiti White Jr., 18, of 5922 Allie Mae Road, Cedar Grove, and Ladell Alverez Faucette, 22, of 5138 Apsley Drive, McLeansville, are charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of robbery with a dangerous weapon. Both have also been charged with one additional count of robbery with a dangerous weapon in a separate armed robbery reported on Tuesday at Sam's Food Mart at 6321 U.S. Hwy. 70 West, Mebane, also in Orange County.

Both men are being held pending a first appearance in Orange County District Court.

They are accused in the fatal shooting Wednesday afternoon of Phillip Johnson, 52, and Alexander "Skip" Wade, 68, at the Week in Treasures store on Mill Creek Road in Cedar Grove. When sheriff's deputies responded to the 911 call around 4 p.m., they found the store's owner, Johnson, dead from multiple gunshot wounds and Wade, a retired Orange County investigator, breathing but unconscious. Wade died shortly after being taken to Duke Hospital.

The store's cash register drawer also was taken.

Both suspects were on probation. Faucette was sentenced to 36 months in January 2011 after being convicted in Alamance County of stealing a motor vehicle. White was sentenced in August to 18 months after being convicted of misdemeanor possession of stolen goods and possessing drug paraphernalia.

Orange County sheriff's officials said the investigation is continuing, and they are not commenting on the arrests.

Another man was slain at the same store in 2004, but investigators said the crimes may not be related. Bill King, who operated the then-bait-and-tackle shop and country store, was shot and killed during a robbery. His murder was never solved.

No one was home and calls went unanswered Thursday at Johnson's address, just a few miles from the store.

Wade's family was preparing for his funeral Friday and said the arrests have brought them a sense of "relief."

Xan Wade, 34, said he didn't know the suspects, but other members of his family did. The family is grateful to the Orange County Sheriff's Office for its quick work, he said.

"They did exactly what he would have expected of them," Xan Wade said. "Even after his retirement, you couldn't say anything bad about law enforcement (around Wade). They proved him to be right."

On Thursday the family greeted a steady stream of friends and relatives at his home. The lifelong Orange County resident graduated in 1961 from Central High School, his family said.

He knew and respected everybody, even the people he had to arrest, his brother Randy Wade said.

In May 2010, Wade escorted his son, Lemario Deon Wade, now 30, to the Mebane Police Department, where he was charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of a 23-year-old man outside a Mebane bar.

Wade testified during his son's bail hearing that Lemario Wade returned home that morning and was acting strange. Lemario Wade then gave his father a gun and told him what happened, Wade testified. He sealed the gun in a plastic bag before taking his son to police the next day.

According to court records, the murder charge against Lemario Wade remains pending. According to published reports, he could face life in prison without parole if convicted.

Wade was an Orange County deputy for more than 20 years, joining the force in 1978. He was a "tenacious investigator," Blackwood said.

"Skip was a great guy. ... He was a character. He was funny," he said. "If something was up, he'd stay until it was finished."

After retirement, friends and family said, Wade enjoyed two passions: playing pool and fishing. He often brought home fish to eat and to give away, they said.

He and his wife owned the thrift shop property, where he frequently stopped to hang out with Johnson, his closest friend, family said.

Wade's nephew Jarrel Williams said the pair regularly played pool together, winning the American Poolplayers Association regionals last year in Raleigh and traveling to Las Vegas to compete in the nationals.

Williams, 25, lived with his aunt and uncle since 1996 and said Wade, whom he last saw Wednesday morning, was more "like my father." Some of the best memories were trips to Daytona Beach, Fla., when he was an eighth-grader, and later to Las Vegas, he said.

Although he could be stern if you did something wrong, "he was always joking," Williams said. "He was full of laughter."

Cecile Pettiford said she had known Wade for years and would see him when she passed the store or catch a glimpse of him fishing at a nearby beaver dam. Wade was a good man and also good at his job, she said.

Years earlier, when her house was robbed, he came out and made sure everything was all right, Pettiford said. He also caught the guy who robbed her.

On Wednesday afternoon, instead of passing the store, Pettiford decided to take another road toward Hillsborough. Otherwise, she might have seen the suspects, she said.

"It's really scary that somebody would do something like that," she said, blinking back tears.

Staff writer Anne Blythe and news researcher David Raynor contributed to this report.