Nora Rowland has spoken out after discovering her father’s caregiver took ownership of his South Carolina home for $5 weeks before his death.
The Baltimore, Md., resident, who had grown alarmed by dwindling contact with her 75-year-old father Robert Rowland, traveled roughly 460 miles to Conway, S.C., last June expecting a routine Father’s Day visit. Instead she was met at the door by Sarah Smalls, the nurse who had provided home care to the Parkinson’s patient in March 2024 before he was moved to a senior living facility — a move Rowland had not been told about.
Smalls delivered devastating news through the Ring doorbell, a device Rowland knew her father never installed. “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.
Rowland climbed through a window rather than wait. Inside she found walls painted “god-awful highlighter orange” and “random photographs” replacing her father’s belongings. “Oh my God! Everything is gone! Who the f–k are these people?” she yelled in footage she recorded. “Where is all my father’s things?”
The confrontation escalated rapidly. “You broke in my freakin’ house,” Smalls yelped back. “This is my house!” Rowland proclaimed, as the nurse hurled expletives.
Court documents later revealed Smalls had been named power of attorney weeks after Robert Rowland entered the care home. On April 17, a quitclaim deed transferred the Conway property to Smalls for five dollars. Bank statements also showed money had been wired to the nurse.
The property records had immediate consequences for Rowland. “I’m walking out of the house expecting them to come and help, and they put me and my partner in handcuffs immediately,” she said. “I just kept saying, ‘I don’t know what’s going on; this is my dad’s house. My dad is dead.'” The trespassing charges were later dismissed.
Rowland had long been close to her father. “My dad was always a daddy’s girl type thing, so it was always me and him throughout my whole life,” she told WMBF. “We FaceTimed every week.” The sudden drop in communication had been uncharacteristic enough to spur the June drive south.
The discovery of her father’s death came only after Rowland pressed the unfamiliar doorbell and forced her way inside. She remains shaken by how quickly the home and its contents were stripped of her family’s presence.
“He was a nice man; he would never think that someone could do this to him,” she said. “It’s so easy for them to get taken advantage of.”