‘This is my dad’s house’: Daughter says caregiver took deed to her father’s home weeks before his death

CONWAY, S.C. (WMBF/Gray News) - A South Carolina man’s daughter says his caretaker had the deed to his home signed over to herself weeks before his death and never said anything about it.

Nora Rowland says nurse Sarah Smalls began caring for her 75-year-old father, Robert, through Griswold Home Care in March 2024.

However, Rowland, who lives in Maryland, said that shortly after her dad came under Smalls’ care, she began hearing less and less from him, which was highly unusual.

“My dad was always a daddy’s girl type thing, so it was always him and me throughout my whole life,” Rowland said. “We FaceTimed every week.”

Rowland said she got worried after not hearing from him on Father’s Day, so she drove to Conway to check on him.

When she arrived at his house, Rowland said she found the front door had been changed and a Ring doorbell camera had been installed.

Rowland said she pressed the doorbell and Smalls answered through the Ring camera with news no daughter ever wants to hear.

“She tells me, ‘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,’” Rowland said.

Rowland said she ended up finding out her father had been dead for three days.

“I went in, and everything was different,” Rowland said. “She had put up random photographs of people I’d never seen before. The walls were painted.”

Rowland said it looked as if a new family had moved into her father’s home.

According to the daughter, Smalls returned shortly after, and she was hoping to get some answers. But instead, Smalls accused her of breaking in and called police.

Rowland said that when Conway police arrived, to her surprise, Smalls showed officers the deed showing the house in her name and treated Rowland and her partner as the ones trespassing.

“I’m walking out of the house expecting them to come and help, and they put my partner and me 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.’”

Police body-camera footage showed a neighbor telling officers he had been worried for weeks about what he was seeing next door.

“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 shared. “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. I even called senior services and asked them to look into it.”

Documents show changes to Robert’s affairs in the months before his death, Rowland said, all without her knowledge.

Records show that in April of this year, Smalls was named as the father’s power of attorney. On April 17, a quitclaim deed transferred his Conway home to her for $5.

Recorded bank statements also showed money transfers from Robert’s account to Smalls, including after he died.

Smalls told WMBF News to contact her lawyer and then called police when crews went to the home.

Horry County’s registrar of deeds, Marion Foxworth III, said his office does not investigate people’s motives, only whether a deed meets South Carolina’s basic legal requirements.

“If it contains all the correct information to meet the legal standard, then we record it,” Foxworth said. “We don’t check whether what’s in that deed is fair or right.”

He said deed theft in the county does not happen often, but his office has seen a major decrease since real estate agents, the association of realtors and the real estate bar began cracking down on training to verify deed owners.

According to Rowland, the criminal charges against her have since been dismissed, but she is still fighting to challenge the deed that transferred her father’s house to his nurse.

The daughter said her father was classified as a vulnerable adult with Parkinson’s and a brain injury, and she worries he never understood what he was signing away.

“It’s so easy for them to get taken advantage of,” Rowland 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.”

Conway police said they are investigating.

WMBF News reached out to Griswold Home Care months ago. A representative said they had no knowledge of the situation. Rowland provided documents obtained through subpoena that she says show otherwise.

Griswold Care Pairing for Myrtle Beach later provided a statement to WMBF News through Director of Media Relations Heather Davern.

The company said Smalls was an independent caregiver on its registry and passed a required background check before being referred to work with Robert for “a very brief period” in 2024.

“Based on our records, at the time of the referenced events involving the power of attorney and property transfer, [Robert] was no longer receiving services through Griswold Care Pairing for Myrtle Beach,” the company said.

Griswold again said it only recently learned about the situation and has launched an internal review. The company said it could not comment further, citing client privacy.

“The safety, dignity, and trust of the individuals and families we serve are central to Griswold Care Pairing for Myrtle Beach’s mission,” the statement said. “Griswold Care Pairing for Myrtle Beach does not condone abuse, exploitation, or inappropriate financial relationships between caregivers and the individuals in their care.”

Separately, WMBF sought to verify Smalls’ professional background.

South Carolina’s Healthy Connections Medicaid registry lists Sarah Weaver Smalls, using a Conway address, as a Certified Nurse Aide.

Rowland provided WMBF with additional records, which she said were obtained through a subpoena, showing Smalls previously held an active nurse practitioner license under a maiden name. WMBF could not independently confirm the record belongs to the same Smalls named in this story.