Nora Rowland was handcuffed outside her late father’s home after his nurse called police on her for entering the property.
The Maryland woman had driven to Conway, South Carolina, to check on Robert, 75, after he failed to answer her calls on Father’s Day. She arrived to find a Ring Doorbell she did not recognize, and when she pressed it, Sarah Smalls — her father’s caregiver since March 2024 through Griswold Home Care — delivered devastating news through the device.
“This isn’t the way that I wanted to tell you, but your dad died, and there’s a bunch of other stuff I have to tell you too. Just wait there,” Smalls said, according to Rowland’s account to WMBF News.
Rowland, panicking, climbed through an unlocked window rather than wait. Inside, she found the home transformed. “I go in there, and I see everything is different,” she stated. “She had put up all these random photographs of people I’d never seen before. The walls are painted this god-awful highlighter orange.”
When Smalls returned, she accused Rowland of breaking in and dialed 911. Officers responding to the call were presented with a quitclaim deed showing the house was now in Smalls’s name. “I’m walking out of the house expecting them to come and help, and they put me and my partner in handcuffs immediately,” Rowland said. “I just kept saying, ‘I don’t know what’s going on; this is my dad’s house. My dad is dead.'”
The property transfer was just one of several suspicious developments in the final months of Robert’s life. Documents showed Smalls was named his power of attorney in April, and the home had been transferred to her for as little as $5. Bank statements revealed money transfers directly to Smalls, including multiple transactions made after Robert’s death.
Robert had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease and a brain injury, conditions his daughter believes made him vulnerable. “My dad was always a daddy’s girl type thing, so it was always me and him throughout my whole life. We FaceTimed every week,” Rowland told WMBF News, describing their close bond.
A neighbor captured on police footage raised his own alarms about the situation. “She [Smalls] was allegedly coming here during the day and taking care of him, and one day she started moving furniture out, and he disappeared,” the neighbor claimed. “She was only in here a very short time, and Bob, he was not within his wits at all. You could’ve talked him into just about anything.” The neighbor added that he had called senior services to request an investigation.
Rowland has warned that her father’s case exposes how easily elderly people can be exploited. “It’s so easy for them to get taken advantage of,” she said. “He was a nice man; he would never think that someone could do this to him. I really can’t emphasize enough how many other people could easily get taken advantage of like this.”
The confrontation at the Conway home occurred just days after Robert’s death, which Smalls had not disclosed to Rowland before the Ring Doorbell encounter.