Nicole Connors, 52: Raleigh shooting victim was upbeat, opinionated, open to new things

Anybody who spent time outside on her street in the Hedingham neighborhood knew who Nicole Denise Connors was. More importantly, she knew who she was.

Friendly, upbeat, kind. Also informed, decisive, opinionated. Like a post on her Facebook page said, Connors was an outspoken Black woman armed with facts.

“If you were her friend on Facebook, you know: She had a comment or an opinion about everything,” said Dr. DeLena Alexander, her cousin, who spoke at Connors home-going service on Thursday in Ohio. Connors didn’t mince words, Alexander said.

“And it didn’t matter if you were a close friend or a family member or a stranger. She was not going to change her opinion.”

Connors, 52, died Oct. 13 when a young gunman opened fire in her neighborhood and along the Neuse River Greenway Trail that borders it, killing five people and injuring two more.

It was the very kind of violence — a white assailant shooting innocent victims — that Howard had posted about on social media as an emblem of American social problems. She also highlighted instances of racism and sexism, pointed out the need to care for the homeless and, in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the value of staying home to flatten the curve.

‘Remember the purple hair days?’

She was a strong woman, her cousin said, asking those gathered in the chapel at the House of Wheat Funeral Home in Dayton, Ohio, “Remember the purple hair days?”

Connors was born in Dayton in 1970, the middle child, with a sister, Robyne, and a brother, Jonathan. Photos that looped past on a video screen inside the chapel showed Connors as a baby, a little girl with braids, a teenager, a beaming bride.

Connors graduated in 1988 from Chaminade Julienne Catholic High School in Dayton, the smile she was known for as bright as her white cap and gown. She received a bachelor’s degree in communication at Wright State University in Fairborn, Ohio, and later a master’s degree in human resources.

She did human resources work as an independent contractor.

Connors married Tracey Howard, also of Dayton, in September 2017, and the couple moved together to Raleigh. They had been renting a home in Hedingham the past three years and recently were making plans to buy a house of their own. They enjoyed exploring Raleigh, especially its restaurants and bars.

At home in Hedingham

Connors fit right in at Hedingham, where golfing, running and dog-walking draw people out of their homes.

“She walked Sami, like, seven times a day,” said Ericka Johnson-Rios, who lives across the street and two doors down from Connors’ home. Connors and Howard moved in in 2019, right before COVID hit, Johnson-Rios said, “and because we were all home, doing less moving around, we were able to congregate a little bit more outside.

“That’s kind of how we got to know each other. We would sit inside the garage and talk, or sit outside and talk, or stand outside and talk. We often walked our dogs together. We would meet up like that, or see each other coming or going from walking the dogs. That’s how we got close.”

They talked about family, Johnson-Rios said, and the fact that most of Connors’ family was back in Ohio. With no kids of her own at home, Connors made a connection with Johnson-Rios’ two daughters, ages 9 and 13. The girls came over and baked with her, brownies once, a cake another time, Johnson-Rios said.

Connors, who was short, became a measuring stick for Johnson-Rios’ youngest.

“She would judge her growth by how tall she was getting next to Nicole,” Johnson-Rios said.

The women talked about work, and Connors said she like the flexibility of contract jobs, which allowed her to work from home. They laughed at how much they both loved the color purple, which Connors used in her wedding to Howard.

‘Her life preaches for itself’

And they talked about their dogs: Johnson-Rios has two, a poodle and a Yorkshire terrier, and Connors had Sami, a terrier she had gotten as a puppy some 12 years ago. Sami had a lot of personality, Johnson-Rios said, always barking at people she didn’t know and sometimes acting as if she didn’t see people she did know.

Sami was hit in the gunfire and died along with Connors.

“God even allowed Sami to go home with her,” said Raleigh Thornton Jr., the officiating minister at Connors’ funeral, which the funeral home live-streamed. “Somebody ought to see God’s hand in that.”

Thornton didn’t know Connors, but said he had known people like her: vibrant, willing to risk enough to love others, and always being herself.

“I don’t really have to preach to you today about Nicole,” Thornton said. “Her life preaches for itself.”

In her honor, Thornton suggested, those who loved Connors should take something from her life and apply it to their own.

Go to the shelter and adopt a furry friend, he said.

Get an education.

Be be your authentic self.

Even so, he said, those who loved Connors, “You’re going to miss her, and it’s going to hurt for a long time.”

This story was originally published October 28, 2022 at 11:38 AM.

Martha Quillin

The News & Observer

Martha Quillin is a former journalist for The News & Observer.