COLUMBIA, S.C. — A growing memorial sits along Farrow Road in Columbia for twin brothers killed in a crash earlier this week.
Monday night, Columbia police say 29-year-old Donald and Ronald Smith were driving in the 4400 block of Farrow Road when they lost control and hit a pole.
Investigators say a high rate of speed and rainy conditions could have played a role in the crash.
Now, family members are raising money for a funeral while helping care for 10 children who lost their fathers.
"It's hard trying to bury one, now we're trying to bury two. It's really hard," said Nicole Smith, a first cousin to Donald and Ronald.
Smith is heartbroken after losing two members of her family in one day. She tells News 19 the twins lived with her for a long time.
"I'm the oldest cousin, so they called me 'Auntie,'" said Smith. "I basically helped take care of them."
She says Donald and Ronald were the life of the party.
"They always had us laughing. At family functions, they were like the clown of everything. They would get to dancing and making us laugh doing silly stuff," Smith said. "They would pull pranks on their friends. They were identical. We could barely tell them apart. They'd have their little girlfriend to the house, and one of them would go in the room and [the other would] come back out and act like it was the same one."
While the twins would play around, Smith says what they did take seriously was their children.
Between the two, they leave behind 10 kids, ranging in age from 4 months to 12 years old.
Donald has another on the way.
"The oldest one, she's taking it really hard," Smith said. "[The twins] always just wanted the best in life. That's all they wanted. They didn't want to be out in the streets. They weren't perfect, but they always wanted to get out of the streets and take care of their kids."
Smith says the family is hoping to review nearby camera footage showing the moments leading up to the crash. She says multiple eyewitnesses have called family members telling them the twins were being chased, which led them to drive at a high rate of speed Monday night down Farrow Road.
"The same thing kept [being told] to us, so we were like, it's gotta be true," said Smith. "That's the only reason I could see them driving like that."
At the scene of the crash sits a memorial with mementos, candles and balloons left by family and friends.
When News 19 visited the memorial Wednesday evening, we met Reagan, a friend of the twins who brought balloons.
"They would be in my parking lot in my neighborhood. Every time I'd come out of my house in the morning, they called me over to talk to me and asked me how I'm doing, checking up on me," she said. "My heart broke because they didn't deserve that. They would be the last person you think that would happen to."
A GoFundMe page is raising funds to bury the brothers.
Any money left will go to their children.
"Right now, the kids don't have anything," Smith said.
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