Terrie Gordon didn't know what to expect when she came to Bismarck to clean out her sister's mobile home. She hadn't seen Pamela Sue Johnson-Craig in more than 10 years.

"It was so hard for me to go in that trailer," Gordon said in a phone interview. "At first, I couldn't go in."

But someone had to take care of what had been left behind when 47-year-old Johnson-Craig was murdered on June 3. So Gordon, 49, drove with a friend from South Carolina to Bismarck to go through the belongings at trailer No. 37 in the Chance Mobile Home Park at 2406 E. Thayer Ave.

Russell F. Craig, Johnson-Craig's husband, is being held in the Burleigh County Detention Center without bond for the murder. His preliminary hearing, where the state has to prove it has enough evidence to go to trial, is slated for today. If he waives the preliminary hearing, the case will proceed to an arraignment where Craig will enter a plea to the murder charge.

If convicted, Craig could face life in prison for the Class AA felony.

Gordon never knew about her sister's marriage to Craig, along with many other details of her recent life. But what Gordon found in the mobile home helped her learn who Johnson-Craig had been during their estrangement and who she was striving to be only months before her death.

"She was just a warm person, but she was an unhappy person," Gordon said about her sister. She said Johnson-Craig always tried to find happiness, "and looked in the wrong places."

Johnson-Craig had spent time in prison on drug charges during those lost years, then worked hard to clean up her life. She thought she had found true love when she married Craig last year, according to e-mails Gordon found in the mobile home. But it is believed that she was considering divorce at the time of her death.

Gordon said she, Johnson-Craig and two older siblings grew up in Michigan. Gordon was "T-Bear" to Johnson-Craig's "PeeWee," though Gordon can't remember where the nicknames came from.

The two girls would play dolls and house when they were young, and they enjoyed doing crafts, cooking and sharing similar interests as they grew up, Gordon said.

"We were both major kitty lovers," she said.

Gordon said Johnson-Craig had a 3-month-old daughter who died when she was 18. Johnson-Craig began drinking, Gordon said.

"It hit her a lot harder than she ever let on," she said. "I think her heart was broken."

The two sisters remained close. Johnson-Craig moved with Gordon and her husband several times.

"She kind of followed us wherever we went," Gordon said.

While living in Virginia for six years, Johnson-Craig had a daughter named Jessica. But Johnson-Craig never believed she was an adequate parent, Gordon said, and she later turned Jessica over to guardians in Virginia.

"She just had a really hard time taking responsibility for her children,"Gordon said.

Jessica is now nearly 16 and still lives in Virginia, Gordon said.

Johnson-Craig had been married twice before she came to North Dakota, Gordon said. After the failed unions, Johnson-Craig always said "she was meant to be single," Gordon said.

When Gordon's husband's job with Indian Health Service took him to Belcourt, Johnson-Craig went along. She was living in that area when she had her third child, a boy named Christopher. For reasons unknown to Gordon, Johnson-Craig didn't seem to want any connection with the boy.

So before Gordon and her husband left North Dakota, Johnson-Craig gave them Christopher. And this time, she didn't move with her sister.

Gordon never saw Johnson-Craig again. They kept in contact for a while, but eventually Gordon's letters to Johnson-Craig's Rolla address began coming back. The lost contact with the sister to whom she had once been so close saddened Gordon. But she remembers her sister each time she looks at Christopher, who is now 12 years old.

"She gave me a wonderful gift," Gordon said.

Gordon assumed Johnson-Craig had moved back to Virginia to be near Jessica. And she thought that until she learned of the June 3 murder.

Gordon came to Bismarck a few weeks after her sister's death. The first thing that struck her was the apparent poverty that her sister had been living in.

"She barely had anything," Gordon lamented. "I would have helped her."

She said she was thankful that Bismarck police officers had taken away all signs of the heinous crime committed in the mobile home.

Though the photographs of the woman who had lived in the mobile home didn't look like the sister she had known, Gordon found many familiar signs of her sister. Crocheted afghans were piled everywhere, Gordon said. She had taught Johnson-Craig to crochet when they were younger, and she was glad to see that bond remained.

Mark Kemmet, Johnson-Craig's parole officer, said the crafts were often given to friends as gifts.

Gordon also found an antique sewing machine case that Johnson-Craig had purchased in Virginia more than 20 years ago. Gordon still remembers how excited her sister was upon finding the 100-year-old case for a low price.

"That was one thing I really didn't want to leave behind," Gordon said.

But not everything Gordon found was reminiscent of happier times. An autobiography that Johnson-Craig had to write while in treatment shed a lot of light on her life.

"There was no happiness in it," Gordon said.

Gordon learned that her sister had spent more than two years in prison on drug charges. Johnson-Craig also had survived a suicide attempt that left her without the ability to taste or smell, Gordon said.

"She never hurt anybody but herself," Gordon said. "She really hit rock bottom."

Gordon read assessments from Johnson-Craig's rehabilitation. She said her sister first appeared angry at friends and family for abandoning her, then later came to realize that she had pushed them away.

Gordon found e-mails that Johnson-Craig had written to old friends and family while trying to rekindle lost relationships. Johnson-Craig had been contacting Jessica again toward the end of her parole, Kemmet said. He said the last two times he talked to her, Johnson-Craig talked about Jessica for at least half of the conversations.

Kemmet said Johnson-Craig kept a job and stayed sober from when she was released from prison on June 17, 2004, to when she got off parole on Feb. 23, 2006.

"She did an exceptional job all the way through parole. She did what she needed to get her life back on track," he said. "She did it the way it's supposed to be done."

After she cleaned up her life, Kemmet said Johnson-Craig seemed to enjoy going to work and relaxing at home.

Kemmet said he was shocked when he got the call from police that Johnson-Craig had been murdered. He was disappointed and angry that the woman who had worked so hard to get her life on track had her life taken from her.

Friends and strangers reached out after Johnson-Craig's death, constructing a memorial to the slain woman at the mobile home park. Bismarck Police Chaplain Dan Sweeney put together a graveside service for Johnson-Craig where friends and acquaintances could say their last goodbyes, Detective Roger Marks said. Kemmet said a large crowd gathered at the cemetery.

Gordon was glad to hear that her sister had made a life for herself and had people who cared about her. Kemmet said he was pleased to see the number of people who had attended the service, too.

"I was quite surprised, because I knew that she didn't really have any ties to the community," he said.

Gordon hopes her sister has found a peace and happiness that she was never able to find on Earth.

"No one deserves to die like that. It's so wrong,"she said. "I just hope the judicial system comes through."

Though more than 10 years have passed since she saw her sister and more than two months have passed since Johnson-Craig's death, Gordon still can't believe her little sister is dead.

"She was my baby sister," she said. "She was my PeeWee."

(Reach reporter Jenny Michael at 250-8225 or jenny.michael@;bismarcktribune.com.)