RALEIGH, N.C. — Five people were shot and killed on October 13, 2022 in Raleigh's Hedingham community. It's a day that will live on for residents. 

The deaths of Mary Marshall, Nicole Connors, James Thompson, Susan Karnatz and off-duty Raleigh Police Officer Gabriel Torres, are seared into the minds of everyone from the neighborhood.

Six months later, what does the neighborhood symbolize to its homeowners? 

“When I hear sirens here at the house or in the neighborhood, and it may be on New Bern [Avenue], it definitely takes me back,” Angel Faggins said.

Faggins remember the beginning of that tragic afternoon well because that is the time of day when she often walks her dog. Except on that fall day, she and her pitbull, Juno, didn’t head out to walk the neighborhood.

“We had the time. It was a nice day in October. I can’t tell you why we didn’t. It was just a weird, last-minute change,” Faggins said.

The choice that day to stay in and not head out with her dog may have saved her life. 

“I think the community as a whole still has a somber, kind of solitude kind of feel to it,” Faggins said.

There was a time when neighbors like Faggins didn’t feel this way. Before that tragic fall afternoon, her strolls with Juno were a highlight of her day. Faggins said their adventures into their little suburban paradise reminded her why she adopted Juno in the first place. 

Angel Faggin, Hedingham community resident. (Spectrum News 1)

The way she expresses her love for the pet is similar to the feeling of finding a new beginning. Faggins, who works in defense and aerospace, moved to Raleigh with her son Cameron from Los Angeles for a better cost of living in July 2021.

“[It is] a slower pace of life. I still had big city conveniences but a smaller city,” Faggins said.

Faggins happily traded bumper-to-bumper traffic in L.A. for a fresher, greener change of scenery. Main thoroughfares in and out of the neighborhood are surrounded by a golf course and walkways with plenty of room to roam.

“I feel safe for the most part. It’s a pretty quiet community. I think that’s another reason why it was so shocking,” Faggins said.

At least that is how she felt before last fall, when the 49-year-old’s last-minute choice not to walk her dog was a life-saving decision.

The mother opted instead to take Juno out to the front lawn for a potty break. What came next was the sound of pure chaos.

“When I had taken her out front of the house, I started hearing the sirens,” she said.

“No one knew what was happening. We just saw all these lights and sirens and officers and response vehicles. I mean we had ATF, FBI, SBI, Knightdale Police, and Raleigh Police. You name it, it was here,” Faggins said.

A loud and tumultuous mix of gunfire, police sirens and blue lights overtook the neighborhood. An hours-long pursuit for the killer would consume the area.

Some of the five people who were killed were Faggins' neighbors.

Investigators with the Raleigh Police Department said the accused shooter is from the community. The teenager accused in the killings was also a classmate of Faggins' son at Knightdale High School.

“The only thing I could tell him is that I am sorry. I took you from a city of 11 million people to a city of 430 some odd thousand people for this to happen,” she said.

Instantly, their slice of heaven became a living hell. “For two nights after that incident, I had nightmares about blue lights flashing and it was dark. And I couldn’t figure out why. It was crazy,” Faggins said.

Documents and 911 calls showed the shooting began close to 5 p.m.

Many residents, like Faggins, had no clue what was actually going on. 

Faggins had tried to leave the neighborhood for her son’s football game. She said that departure took 45 minutes as emergency crews raced to the exits of the community as the flood of cars continued to roll into Hedingham.

“It was hard to get out. There are basically two entrances and exits to this community,” Faggins said.

During the manhunt, the main drag from Southall Road to Eagle Trace Drive was shut down, which created a one-way in, one-way out logjam.

“Had I known, I would have sheltered in place,” Faggins said. “At one point in time, I had to pull over, up on that sidewalk onto the golf course to get out of the way for an ambulance that was leaving, and again, at that point in time, I was clueless as to what was going on.”

One of the reasons why she was in the dark was because the City of Raleigh and Wake County did not send electronic alerts to cell phones warning people a killer was on the run. 

“Clearly, active shooters have become a way of life. It seems like they would put measures in place to let their citizens know and protect their citizens,” Faggins said.

In previous reporting, Spectrum News 1 looked into why there was no mass digital push sent by the city or county to notify people of the extreme circumstances.

“They do them for Amber Alerts. They do them for Silver [Alerts]. They do them for weather alerts,” she said.

The RPD disseminated updates from its Twitter handle, and the city provided some updates on its municipal webpage.

The horrors of that dark night trigger apprehension for Faggins to this day.

“I think the things that change are that you are hyper aware of the things and people around you,” she said.

Even so much as passing a neighbor on the street is not the same. “For me, every time I see somebody, I’m scanning them. I am scanning their body. Where are their hands. Are they carrying a bag? It seems silly but (I do it),” Faggins said.

It’s the life of a woman living in a post mass-shooting community. Now, she is asking what plans have city leaders made for handling a mass crisis if this happens again.

“Based on my experience and going through the mass shooting here last October, I don’t know that they are very prepared,” she said.

Recently an RPD spokesperson replied to an inquiry about what the force has changed since their response to the mass shooting.

The statement partially reads, "The Raleigh Police Department understands the community's need for information during quickly evolving incidents. During the Hedingham mass shooting, the Raleigh Police Department used traditional media, as well as social media, to alert residents. The Raleigh Police Department will use this opportunity to assess our systems and processes of communication to ensure the timely and accurate dissemination of critical information.”

Reminders of the neighborhood’s collective trauma were evident in the days after the deadly shooting. Neighbors said they couldn’t escape the daytime images of yellow tape and police officers in their streets.

“It was exhausting. Even if you wanted to think it was just a dream, a bad dream, that it all was just a bad dream, you were reminded daily that it wasn’t,” Faggins said.

Six months later, the scarring remains fresh. Sometimes Faggins talks to her next-door neighbors, the Fawcetts, about the aftermath. In the past, what would normally be a "hi" and "goodbye" greeting is suddenly a deeper conversation with the couple.

“It’s scary,” Faggins said. “How things have changed or not changed, and things that need to happen.”

Her neighbor, Kathy Fawcett, once worked in education. The thought of shootings is too much to bear for the grandmother.

“I wouldn’t want to be a child or a parent of a child in grammar school,” Kathy Fawcett said.

Faggins said because of the nightmare evening, her motherly instincts kick into gear on days when she takes her child to school.

“When I drop Cameron off, it’s the, ‘I love you. Have a great day.’ I will not let him get out of the car until he tells me he loves me too. Because God forbid that’s the last time I get to see my son or talk to my son either because something happened to me or something happened to him. There’s not going to ever be any question,” Faggins said.

All Faggins can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other.

She is now part of a group of Americans experiencing how the direct or indirect affects of gun violence will stay with them forever.

Faggins hopes the City of Raleigh or Hedingham Homeowners’ Association will one day erect a monument to honor the victims.