Rock Hill man sitting on porch pistol-whipped, robbed at gunpoint

A man visiting co-workers at a Rock Hill home, where the family of a woman who killed her abusive father in 2003 to end the nightmare of violence lived, was pistol-whipped and robbed Tuesday morning, leaving the man a bloody mess and the family distraught, frightened and ready to move out.

The assailants were armed and wore masks – one of them had on a “Halloween” type Michael Myers mask.

“We have had enough without these punks doing this,” said Janice Clark Smith, 61.

Smith served 17 months in prison for the 2003 killing of her father who abused her and other family members for decades before Smith shot him. Smith pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a case where The Herald’s coverage of the abuse and killing – a killing that was not legally justified, but ended decades of abuse – spawned national media attention including Smith and her family appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show and Larry King Live.

Janice Smith became a national figure in the fight against domestic abuse and violence.

“We just want to live here in peace and quiet,” Janice Smith said Tuesday.

But her daughter, Shannon Ellis, whose own daughter came face-to-face with armed robbers, said the incident has upset the family so much that after four months in the home on Saluda Street just south of downtown Rock Hill, they plan to move out.

“This whole thing has just been terrifying and has the whole family upset,” Ellis said.

After police left Tuesday morning, overturned furniture and blood from the victim was still visible on the back porch.

“When I saw him he was covered in so much blood – all you could see was his eyeballs,” Janice Smith said.

The family called 911 after the incident and Rock Hill Police Department detectives, crime scene technicians and a K-9 unit were called out, but so far no arrests have been made, according to Rock Hill police. The suspects are described as two black males, according to the police report.

In the incident around 3 a.m. Tuesday, a co-worker of Ellis’ daughter was on the back porch after the granddaughter and two co-workers at a Fort Mill restaurant finished a shift and came to the house to unwind after work. Ellis’ daughter and her boyfriend had just stepped inside the house for a minute, leaving the victim outside alone on the porch.

The victim, a 30-year-old man, was approached by the two alleged thieves who pulled guns on him and pistol-whipped him on the head, according to the report from the incident.

Shannon Ellis said when she heard the noise and confusion she thought that maybe the people who had just finished work had music too loud. She called out to her 19-year-old daughter to tell everyone to quiet down, then her daughter opened the door.

“She opened the door and was staring right at one of them with a gun,” Ellis said. “He had the gun pointing right at her.”

Ellis said she went to a closet to get her gun but by the time she went to the porch the assailants had fled.

Ellis’ daughter was too distraught to speak about the incident, but her mother and grandmother want the people who pistol-whipped and robbed the family friend caught. So far, police have not identified or arrested the robbers.

Representatives with the Saluda Street neighborhood association came to comfort the victims Tuesday, saying that they also want the crime solved.

Janice Smith said her family “has been through too much” to deal with being victimized again.

Smith has never denied that she killed her father 12 years ago, but the abuse that she, her mother and sisters, her daughter and others, took at the hands of her father horrified both prosecutors and the judge in the case and led to the reduced charge and shorter prison sentence.

“This is horrible – this is my family,” Smith said. “I just want to get them up and leave. We have had enough.”

This story was originally published September 29, 2015 at 11:04 AM with the headline "Rock Hill man sitting on porch pistol-whipped, robbed at gunpoint."