COLLETON COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) – A funeral service was held Saturday afternoon in Walterboro for five lives lost in a Colleton County house fire.
Hundreds of loved ones, friends and neighbors gathered at the Walterboro Performing Arts Center to celebrate lives taken suddenly and unexpectedly.
“It’s always a question people ask you know, how are you doing?” family member Curtis Magwood Sr. said. “So I just begin to tell people my feeling’s strong, my spirit’s intact, but I’m still heartbroken.”
Today’s service remembered Michelle Magwood, Shamiah Rutledge, Samiya Manigo, Amos Magwood and Maggie Magwood; A group of people called “family to all.”
“If you’re anyone that knows a Magwood you know we don’t look at anybody as just friends, after your second visit you become family,” Curtis Magwood said.
Speakers shared memories and sentiments with the group, tales of what it was like to be a part of the tight-knit Greenpond community.
This weekend marks three weeks since the quiet town was rocked by a stabbing and house fire that left six dead and one critically injured.
Ryan Manigo, 33, has since been charged with murder and attempted murder, and was denied bond. The investigation is still ongoing.
“I just want to say this for Greenpond, this does not define who we are,” Pastor Sinclair Brown said. “This cannot define who we are.”
Some community members say rebuilding has been full of hardship – that it “simply doesn’t make sense.”
With heavy hearts, loved ones, friends, and even strangers held each other, prayed together and promised to always remember the bright lives on the stage.
“Their lives were a blessing, their memories are a treasure,” family member Gretchen Jackson-Simpson said. “They are loved beyond words. And they’ll be missed beyond measure.”
The family is asking for the community to continue showering them with love and support as they try to rebuild and heal.