Hedingham months after shooting: A healing neighborhood where hopes and fears collide

After three months, the crosses came down at Hedingham’s entrance, along with the flowers, the stuffed bumblebee and other tributes to the fallen.

Only one heart-shaped wreath remained, its pine branches turned brown — a relic likely missed when the other bouquets were gathered.

Time had thinned out the makeshift memorial in the months after the Oct. 13 mass shooting in the Raleigh subdivision, leaving four crosses of the original five. By January, a magenta running shoe, left there as a token to victim Susan Karnatz, had fallen to the ground from its perch on a brick wall.

Those flowers and framed portraits had greeted every car that passed on Hedingham Boulevard, a daily reminder of the five lives lost. They marked a Raleigh community of 48,000 people that is both wrestling with fear and striving for unity, standing for a neighborhood that seeks compassion while also keeping a wary eye.

For Gilbert Reed, a father of three, the crosses stood only a tricycle’s ride from his front door, reminding him of that day he was home alone with a wide-open door until a neighbor ran over with a warning. He remembers how he and his family huddled in the same bedroom until they got the all-clear.

“We believe God’s out here,” said Reed, 36, in January. “He’s protecting us. What’s going to happen is going to happen. But we always drive by the memorial and say, ‘How can they get rid of that?’ “

Memorials and no motive

By the homicide count, 2022 ranks among Raleigh’s deadliest years, fueled by Hedingham’s five victims:

▪ James Thompson, 16, a junior at Knightdale High School, fond of basketball and fishing, who had started collecting and cleaning stray golf balls around Hedingham’s golf course and selling them back to golfers. He was slain by his younger brother Austin, still recovering from his own gunshot wound and yet to be charged;

▪ Nicole Connors, 52, an Ohio native who worked in human resources and made dozens of friends around Hedingham on her daily dog walks;

▪ Mary Marshall, 34, a Navy veteran who dreamed of opening her own bakery, killed just before she was to be married;

▪ Susan Karnatz, 49, an avid runner and patron of many charities, who worked as a school psychologist until pausing to home-school her own sons and coax them into running;

▪ and Officer Gabriel Torres, 29, a Marine veteran who had only recently joined Raleigh police, quickly gaining a reputation for his calming presence.

In the first few weeks, hundreds wept and prayed through vigils, lighting candles, walking Hedingham streets and consoling each other with hugs. Memorials to Marshall and Karnatz, both killed on the greenway, took shape near the spots where they died at mile marker 13 3/4, one including the message, “I’ll hold you in my heart till I can hold you in heaven.”

Some vowed to hold these memorials every year, and a permanent memorial is in the works now that the crosses and a mural have been taken down. The Hedingham Care Committee sent this statement to The N&O:

“Our hearts go out to the victims families, residents, and all those affected by this tragedy. ... The beautiful canvas mural, created by the artist Roberto Marquez, has been moved inside to protect it from the elements. Future placement of the mural is to be determined at a later date. The temporary memorials at the Hedingham entrances have been removed after the three month anniversary. The Hedingham residents are in discussion of a permanent memorial, but it is in the early planning stages.”

As The News & Observer traveled through Hedingham recently seeking news about the neighborhood’s healing, few would offer any comment, including the HOA board or planning committee.

In a November forum conducted by The N&O, Marshall’s fiance, Robert Steele, described being escorted home by police on the night of the shootings along with his doctor, a gun owner who keeps her weapons locked in a safe.

The first thing he did that night, Steele said, was go upstairs to his own safe, unload his own gun and give it to his doctor for safe keeping.

“Not because I felt like I was suicidal at the time,” he said at the forum, held at the NC Museum of History, “but because I felt like I was high risk. So I voluntarily gave up my gun.”

‘On high alert now’

Asked about the shooting’s aftermath and the healing period that continues, Hedingham residents described a feeling close to post-traumatic stress that increases the closer they live to spots where their neighbors died.

“Probably right until Christmas, there were people who didn’t come outside unless they were going to work,” said Jake Brown, a 36-year-old father. “There were people who thought twice about that tee time.”

As a neighborhood, Hedingham straddles an 18-hole golf course, and neighbors often house-to-house by golf carts. Two lakes are stocked with bass, and a gazebo overlooks the water off a main artery. With this environment, Reed grew accustomed to letting his 13-year-old run off to friends’ houses with just a shouted announcement from the door. Now he insists his son’s phone stay on whenever he leaves, and that a message gets sent whenever he gets where he’s going.

“Nobody’s back here,” said Christian Holmes, who lives off the greenway. “The people who buy these cookie-cutter, mass-produced townhomes back there, that’s why they buy them. It’s quiet.”

But now, he said, “There’s memorials to two people on the Neuse River trail for where they were executed by a child. I walk my dog there every day.”

Bre Balotti was home alone with her infant child on Oct. 13, living just yards from the Neuse River greenway where Marshall and Karnatz died. Weeks passed before she would walk there again, and once she did, she walked for no more than 5 minutes in either direction.

“I’m really on high alert now,” she said. “I don’t wear headphones anymore.”

Hedingham Strong

People living in Hedingham describe a simultaneous urge to do something and a confusion over what, exactly, to do. To live in walking distance of a massacre is to be prodded by a nagging sense of duty that doesn’t give instructions.

“What do you do?” asked Holmes, who often saw some of the victims on the greenway before the shooting. “This didn’t all happen because we have gang bangers on the block, or because there’s a cartel on the street.

“It’s working class, and there’s some folks who need to pick up their cigarette butts, but it’s folks.”

Not long after the shooting, Brown thought of something.

He enjoys shooting and editing video, and he posted a black-and-white montage of Hedingham footage on Facebook, his camera passing over the memorial crosses, zooming in on the faces in the framed portraits, lingering on Steele as he held a picture of Marshall, his fiancee.

“People all over the country have heard our name,” he said in the voiceover narration. “Now let’s show them what our name means. It means unity. It means strength. It means love. Let’s show them that we are Hedingham.”

To date, the video has more than 1,000 views, and it helped spark an informal slogan: Hedingham Strong.

“We really like to call ourselves a community, and it really is,” said Brown. “It is an amazing, fun-loving community, but we’re really used to things going well. It’s hard to see what the path forward is. This has given great visibility to the fact there are needs there. There is more going on under the surface. Maybe people who used to wave at each other are doing meals together now.”

‘A natural empathy’

Everyone in Hedingham who spoke with The N&O cited a recent fire on Blackwolf Run as one of the signs of change in the neighborhood. Nobody was hurt in the blaze, but before long, neighbors were riding over in golf carts, offering help.

“Prior to, I would have had that feeling” of charity, said Reed, comparing his attitude before and after the shooting. “But it felt a lot more close to home, more like, I must this time. Hedingham Strong means a lot. We’re all one human race.”

On the greenway, Holmes notices a collective awareness that something important has changed, so people make eye contact when they would formerly look away from another dog-walker or jogger.

Kids in Hedingham are playing in the streets again, mostly on bikes, and neighbors looking to connect through good deeds have started fixing their bikes as a small but meaningful gesture. If moving forward from Oct. 13 has a positive, this new desire to know the faces beyond your own yard may be it.

“We’ve got a living example of actually it does matter when you don’t give a damn,” said Holmes. “I’m not saying get in everyone’s business, but there’s a real consequence when a neighborhood doesn’t have a natural empathy and connection to others.”

‘Hoping we’re on the upswing’

Last holiday season, which she and her husband celebrated with their 5-month-old baby, Balotti received five Christmas cards from neighbors who had never sent them before.

Another difference since October: sometimes she sees more police cars around Hedingham than she used to. But maybe they were always there and she never noticed them before.

Either way, she still sees people stop at the memorial at the Hedingham Boulevard entrance, reading the names on the pink, purple and yellow crosses that stand taller than their heads. They set flowers down, so she knows nobody is forgetting about Oct. 13.

Still, only a month passed until calamity struck Raleigh again: an 11-year-old girl killed in the Christmas parade, struck by a truck pulling a float.

Not even a month later, the state turned its attention to Moore County, where unknown assailants sabotaged the power grid, leaving thousands without heat.

It hasn’t been the easiest time to heal, but Hedingham persists in this humble goal.

“Is there a curse on Hedingham?” she asked. “I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t feel comfortable being here. ... It’s a bad time for Raleigh right now. It feels like when it rains it pours. I’m hoping we’re on the upswing.”

This story was originally published February 10, 2023 at 6:00 AM.

Josh Shaffer

The News & Observer

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Josh Shaffer is a general assignment reporter on the watch for “talkers,” which are stories you might discuss around a water cooler. He has worked for The News & Observer since 2004 and writes a column about unusual people and places.