LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — At 87, Verdie Mackey still cut her grass, kept up her flower bushes, and was active in her church every Sunday. She liked people, and after retiring from the Springs cotton mills, she went to work at Walmart as a greeter.
On Monday, her two sons stood in court, holding back tears. Their last memories of her mother are seeing her covered in blood.
"My mother didn't deserve this. She didn't deserve to be taken from us in this way," said Ronald Mackey.
Most shocking to them is the man who took her. Her own great-grandson, 31-year-old William Richard Greene, known as Richard. On Monday, he pleaded guilty to stabbing Verdie Mackey to death in her home. It happened April 15, 2012, on Grace Avenue outside Lancaster.
There were 39 knife wounds found on Mackey's body with some of them defensive wounds on her hands.
Greene had gone to her house that morning to ask for money. She refused, telling him he'd just spend it on drugs. Greene had been in treatment for drug and alcohol abuse that same year, but didn't finish the program. He had dropped out of school after the ninth grade, and had several brushes with the law.
He told deputies he went to hug Mackey that morning, and she backed away. He said he just got angry and attacked her.
Yet Greene didn't just kill her, but stabbed her until one knife broke, then grabbed another one, and kept on stabbing. At autopsy, investigators found one knife blade still buried in the elderly woman's neck. Another was tossed behind the refrigerator, just where Greene told deputies they would find it.
Mackey was dragged down the hallway, and left on the floor in a guest bedroom. Greene then took her checkbook and several pieces of her jewelry. Investigators said Greene had gotten a ride to Verdie Mackey's house with a relative. After the murder, he went back to the waiting car, and rode back home, never with a word to anyone about the crime.
His great-grandmother's body wasn't found until 12 hours later when her son, Bill, came looking for her, after she didn't answer her phone. He always called her every day, and became concerned.
Bill Mackey said in court he knows his mother would want him to show forgiveness, but he can't.
"I'll tell you at this time, I have not and will not forgive him," Bill Mackey said.
Solicitor Doug Barfield got into the gruesome details of the crime, describing the location of blood all over the small white house, with much of it in the kitchen.
"There was blood on the floor, on the counter, on the drawers, on the curtain over the sink, on the faucet handle on the sink, on the soap dispenser, on a chair, and it was later found on the refrigerator," Barfield said. "If ever a homicide deserves the maximum penalty of life in prison, this one does."
Veride Mackey's granddaughter Rachel Haines remembers getting the worst phone call of her life, telling her to come to the house on Grace Avenue.
"The final time that my grandmother would leave her house, and come out the front door, in a black body bag," she said. "I'm here to seek justice for the heinous and cruel act."
Greene's mother Theresa Hopkins also spoke Monday, asking for leniency from the court.
"He's not a monster," she said.
Greene himself spoke to the judge, but then said he was too emotional to continue.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry, it hurts too much to talk about it," he said.
His lawyer described Greene as mentally ill, but not to the level where he couldn't stand trial for the crime.
Greene is a father of four children, ages 15, 10, 8 and 5. He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder, plus five years for the weapon charge involving the knife.
"The last two years have been a nightmare," Bill Mackey said to the judge. "He has no conscience. Give him the max."