SUMTER, S.C. — A Sumter community is honoring the lives of three children shot and killed in their own home six months ago. In March of this year, five people were found shot to death in a home in what law enforcement has called a domestic-related incident.
"It's a thing that's hard to describe. You don't imagine those kinds of things," said Eddie Jackson, the former Woodridge Homeowners Association (HOA) president.
Jackson said he remembers finding out that three children and two men were shot to death inside a home in his neighborhood.
"You read about them all the time in big cities where crime is rampant, and things take place that you only hear about somewhere else," he said. "So, for that to happen in your neighborhood, it's shocking. More so in a small town like Sumter is."
Six months later, Jackson is working with his neighbors to honor the children. Now, two benches sit outside the subdivision's entrance with a plaque honoring the 5, 6 and 11-year-olds.
"Kids in the morning gather here waiting on a school bus. So they have a chance if they want to sit here, and they can see the plaques that are on them as well, which are in memory of Ava, Aason and Aayden," Jackson said. "They were donated to us by Simpson's Hardware here in town. The HOA also approached them about that. We wanted to find something that would be sort of a memorial."
In the wake of the tragedy, the community hung white ribbons —many still on display.
"It came as kind of a brainstorm of ideas. What can we do? What's appropriate?" Jackson said of the HOA board. "And they just started getting together a bunch of ideas and started asking around the neighborhood and seeing who was willing to take part to help or whatever, and then it just snowballed from there."
Jackson says the HOA also planted white flowers in the neighborhood, symbolizing the kids' innocence.
"We're told to love each other and to love our neighbors. And that's what we want to do," Jackson said. "So to see the neighborhood come together was a really, really great thing. It makes me proud to say that I'm a member of Woodridge."
A community that's hoping to rally around the children's mother.
"For her to have the support of her community, not just after it happened, but continually each and every day, and a show of support," Jackson said. "When she rides in the neighborhood, she can see the benches. As she rides down the street, she can see white ribbons and she knows what the meaning of them all are. It just lets her know that we're still thinking about her."
Jackson says in the spring, the neighborhood plans to plant trees at the neighborhood's back entrance in the children's honor.
"We don't want to just be something that is a Woodridge thing, we would much rather it be citywide or countywide," Jackson said. "We would love for other neighborhoods to put up some white ribbons even if it's only at their entrance, you know to say that we remember this and we support you."