Kathleen Parker: The dead live on as long as the living remember

They say our lives go on after death only as long as the last person who remembers us. Except for a few notables of history, this means we live for a couple or three generations before photographs fade and family stories are forgotten.

But what about people who die with no family or friends to remember them? I’d never given the question much thought; I’m busy worrying about and, lately, burying my own people, whose lives I try to hang onto.

My thinking changed on Jan. 9, 2021, when a couple in my neighborhood in Camden, South Carolina, were murdered in their home and their house was set ablaze.

I didn’t know Steven and Nancy Hales, but I’ve become a bit obsessed with them, not out of morbid curiosity but out of respect for lives so horribly extinguished – and the real possibility that any memories of them will be short-lived. The Haleses had no children and they lived private lives. “They weren’t social,” as one neighbor described them to me.

As far as I know, I never laid eyes on them. I’m told by acquaintances that they were active in local Republican politics. They loved antiques and often visited a destination shop, Camden Antiques Market, which is something of a social hub for locals who love a good story as well as old treasures. Owner Patricia Richardson, aka “the Queen,” is the main attraction. Elegant, tall and lanky, she’s a raconteur who knows everything and everyone, including Steven and Nancy Hales.

The Haleses bought a lot, Richardson told me. Steven, especially, had an educated eye. She recalls a time when he noticed a heavy, etched-glass pitcher inside a cabinet and exclaimed, “Oh, where did you get that 18th-century English pitcher?” When she opened the cabinet for him, he said, “I have to have it.”

“He was very knowledgeable about a lot of things,” said Richardson. “He was very discerning.”

For several months after the murders, yellow crime tape surrounded the property on the corner of Chestnut and Lyttleton streets. A few flowers lay on the front walk below the tape. A white pergola stands vigil on the side yard next to the walk. Presumably, a path led to a back door of what used to be a pretty, yellow two-story house. The second floor was badly burned after the murderer spread gasoline throughout the house the day after the killings. Neighbors noticed the flames on Jan. 10 and called authorities.

First responders found a large pool of blood in the driveway, and the bodies of Steven and Nancy Hales in the kitchen. Their throats had been slashed.

It would be an understatement to say that the murders shocked the town. No one could imagine such a thing happening in this peaceful, historic place – especially in the Haleses’ neighborhood, which is filled with cottages that survived the Civil War. General William T. Sherman did drop by Camden after reducing Columbia to cinders, but luck was on the side of South Carolina’s oldest inland city: it rained. When he decamped, Sherman left the town unscathed, which is partly why people want to live here and why wealthy northerners used to bring their polo ponies down to winter.

A sign still reads: “No horses on sidewalk.”

It didn’t take long for police to make an arrest. Neighbors had pointed them in the direction of Thomas Dwayne Knotts, 46, who had done odd jobs for the Haleses. Steven helped Knotts start a roofing business and frequently loaned him money. Tag readers set up throughout the county tracked Knotts and the white Toyota Tacoma he had taken from the Haleses’ residence to his mother’s house. His pockets were stuffed with jewelry, and more jewelry was found outside in a shed.

Knotts was scheduled for trial this year during the week of Sept. 25 but instead pleaded guilty. Calling him “evil personified,” Judge Donald B. Hocker sentenced Knotts to two consecutive life sentences for two counts of murder, two counts of desecration of human remains, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, arson in the second degree and grand larceny.

For a few bucks he got from an ATM using the Haleses’ stolen cards, and a pocketful of jewels, Knotts killed two people who had tried to help him. He deserves no recognition for what he did and should die in prison, but, as these things often go, he will be remembered by the community, his mother and no doubt others.

There’s little left to remind anyone of the two people who once lived in the pretty yellow house, now demolished. I happened to be driving by on the day of the demolition and stopped to watch. The front wall was down and I could see a fireplace on the second floor and a pretty crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. I took photos as the wrecking ball took aim but couldn’t watch and drove away before the light fixture was destroyed. I guess no one wanted it.

Someone has bought the lot where the home once stood. Maybe when the next house is built, the owners will include a brick in the foundation engraved with the names of Steven and Nancy Hales. Some folks have already planted a tree in the park across the street with a marker reading: “In memory of Nancy & Steven Hales/ Good Friends.” In these small ways, perhaps, the Haleses can live on a while longer – until the last person who remembers them is gone.