By Fallan Patterson

Staff Writer

On a sunny, clear-blue June day, nearly 32 years after Norma Thomas Page was brutally murdered in St. Cloud’s Church of the Nazarene’s parsonage, family and friends gathered to celebrate her life.

Under the outstretched branches of an oak tree in Osceola Memory Gardens on June 11, those who remembered Page wore turquoise-colored clothing, Page’s favorite color, and wide-brimmed straw hats in honor of the housewife and mother of two boys.

“It’s just like part of our heart is missing,” Kay Myers, Page’s sister, said. “We’ve all experienced so much pain but we’re going to move on as a family.”

Page’s two young sons, just 2 and 4 in 1979, were present during her murder. A lifetime passed as they grew up. They went to college, married and had children of their own, all the while wondering who killed their mother.

Steve Page is the youngest of Page’s sons. Now 34, although the memory of his mother is limited to that “bad” 1979 summer day, he said he was grateful to have some closure.

“It’s always been a question: Who did it?” Page said, after watching the 32 white balloons released by his family float away. “At least we have his confession and now we know.”

For 30 years, the family waited for answers about who killed Page, 28, described by family as a shy, strong-willed woman who used every opportunity at her disposal to grow the congregation of her husband Jim Page’s church.

Under the direction of St. Cloud Police Chief Pete Gauntlett, Det. Christian Anderson painstakingly pieced together three decades of notes and evidence. After two articles of clothing and a towel were found to have Steven H. Bronson Jr.’s DNA on them in December 2010, an arrest was made and healing began for Page’s family.

The dedication by police was not overlooked by Page’s family, who presented Gauntlett and Anderson with a plaque for the police station and eagle statues for their desks.

“The right people came along,” said Page’s cousin Cheryl Hickman, who aided Page’s family in pushing police for answers. “You will always be a part of our family.”

Gauntlett commended his department’s “dedicated effort” in solving the case.

“We’ve done our role and done it well,” Gauntlett said, adding he seeks “reflection” by often passing the still-standing former parsonage on Tennessee Avenue.

A Page memorial plaque will be included with the scheduled renovation of the Neptune Road police station, Gauntlett said.

Bronson, the career criminal who was arrested less than a mile from the June 1979 crime scene in the Avante nursing home where he lived, was scheduled for trial June 6.

Instead, Bronson, 63, will face a fourth competency evaluation this month to determine whether he is mentally capable to assist in his own defense.

“We’re in a holding pattern,” Gauntlett, who sat with Page’s family at the June 2 hearing, said. “A unified front is important in this case.”

Three other doctors previously found the multiple stroke victim incompetent for trial.

“It’s disheartening to know you put in a lot of time and effort for it to reach that state, but I know my role is limited with the prosecution,” Anderson said.

Osceola County Circuit Court Judge Scott Polodna will make a final determination at a June 24 hearing. Rather than face trial, Bronson could be placed in a secured state mental facility, among other possibilities.

“There could be a number of scenarios of how placement could go,” Gauntlett said. “I couldn’t be more proud that the case was solved, an arrest was made and the family got closure. How it is served is up to the court.”