‘Emotionally numb’: Raleigh remembers the Hedingham mass shooting victims one year later
The skies were clear blue above downtown Raleigh on Friday, as the city prepared to remember five of its own.
It was a warm autumn day, much like it was a year ago in the sleepy Hedingham neighborhood, moments before tragedy struck.
On Oct. 13, 2022, five people, Nicole Connors, Susan Karnatz, Mary Marshall, James Thompson and Gabriel Jesús Torres were killed in a mass shooting in that subdivision in northeast Raleigh.
Members of the community gathered Friday at the city’s municipal building for a vigil to remember them.
Dr. Jeremy Gilmore, a member of WakeMed’s spiritual care and education department, was one of the chaplains who responded to the shooting that October night.
“It was the beginning of a long long night filled with emotions,” he said at the vigil. “I remember leaving the building being emotionally numb.”
About 40 people attended the remembrance event, where communications officials from the city handed out tissue boxes. In attendance were City Council member Megan Patton and Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson. Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin was not in attendance. She told The N&O in a text message she was “out of town at a long-planned family reunion.”
“But my heart was there.”
Chaplain Jeff Neal from the Raleigh Fire Department also spoke during the vigil.
“I saw a city come together. I saw a community coming together,” he said. “I have learned that in order to move forward, you have to lean on your faith.”
As the event wound down, people in the crowd bowed their heads as sirens whined in the background, a deafening reminder of the events of last fall.
These are the five who were killed.
Nicole Connors, 52
Connors lived in the neighborhood with her husband, Tracey Howard, 57. They had been married for five years. They met on Facebook, Howard said last year, as he sat on the porch where he’d come home a day earlier to find his wife after she’d been shot.
The alleged shooter also shot and killed the dog Howard and Connors shared.
Connors worked in human resources and had been renting her home in Hedingham with Howard for the past three years.
Howard had gone to Lowe’s to buy light bulbs late on the afternoon of the shooting. He returned home to find his wife’s body on their porch.
The alleged shooter lived two doors down from the couple. In the mailbox in front of the couple’s home — in the house where they made their lives — there was a bullet hole, and a small piece of paper marking it for evidence.
Susan Karnatz, 49
Karnatz lived in Hedingham with her husband, Tom. He grieved his wife in a Facebook post after the shooting, saying the couple had big plans for their lives with their three sons and as empty nesters when the boys were grown. His tribute, a poem posted early the day after the shooting, read:
“We had big plans together
And we had little plans together.
We had plans together for big adventures
And plans together for the mundane days in between.
We had plans together with the boys
And we had plans together as empty nesters
We had plans together for growing old.
Always together.
Now those plans are laid to waste.
We have big memories together
And we have little memories together.
We have memories together of joyous occasions
And memories together of plain times in between.
We have memories together from before the boys
And memories, many memories together with the boys.
Always and for ever, memories together.”
A hundred notes of condolence poured in in response to the post. Several talked about Sue Karnatz’s love for running, her kindness toward others and her dedication to social justice.
Mary Marshall, 34
Marshall lived in Hedingham. Her step-grandmother, Donna Marshall, said Mary had served in the Navy, attended culinary school, was very family oriented and moved back to the Raleigh area three years ago after spending the prior two years with her in Orlando.
“She loved to go to the beach, and she was an absolute fanatic about Disney World,” Donna Marshall said.
While in Florida, Mary Marshall worked at a Starbucks and did clerical work for a dentist. She had a terrier mix named Scruff who had picked her when she visited a shelter, her step-grandmother said. (Mary Marshall’s neighbors in Hedingham told The N&O she had a dog named Scruffy.)
“When she was in the Navy, she was stationed in California, and the story she told was she was at an animal rescue and just sitting on the floor, and Scruff came up and sat in her lap,” Donna Marshall said. Mary Marshall’s parents, Ginny and Tom Marshall, live in Clayton.
“It’s going to be extremely difficult for her mom and dad and her sister and her close family,” she said. “It’s just going to be awful.”
Marshall’s fiance, Robert Steele, asked for help finding her the night of the shootings in a post to a Hedingham Facebook group. He later wrote: “I was informed that my beautiful, loving, amazing fiance was killed on the trail tonight. Thank you all for your love and support.”
Wake Technical Community College President Scott Ralls tweeted Friday that Marshall “was known by faculty and students as a hard worker with a determination to succeed, and was one of six Wake Tech culinary students selected to study in France prior to graduation. Wake Tech remembers Mary today, and sends prayers for all the victims and their families.”
James Thompson, 16
Thompson was a junior at Knightdale High School.
The week of the shooting was supposed to be homecoming at the school, with a tailgating event planned before a Friday night football game against Rolesville High.
On the school’s Facebook page, someone posted a note offering prayers “for the Knightdale High family, the student’s family and friends of the teen victim of the Neuse River Greenway shooting yesterday.”
School Principal Keith Richardson issued a statement at the time saying, “This is an incredibly difficult time for our school community as well as the broader Raleigh community. We have learned that junior James Thompson was killed in yesterday’s tragic shooting on the Neuse River Greenway. It is an unexpected loss and we are saddened by it.
“Our condolences, thoughts, and prayers go out to James’ family, the other victims, their families and all who have been impacted by yesterday’s events.
“We all will need time to process the emotions we are feeling right now.”
Raleigh Police Officer Gabriel Jesús Torres, 29
Torres was off-duty at the time of the shooting, but was on his way to work, Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson said. He was not in uniform or in his patrol car when he was shot, she said.
Patterson said Torres had been with the department for 18 months. Before that, Torres served as a Marine at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville.
Torres leaves behind his wife and one child, Patterson said.
Reporters Martha Quillin, Andrew Carter and Josh Shaffer contributed to this story.
This is a developing story and will continue to be updated.
