Fellow Veterans, Residents Pay Tribute to Slain Harnett County Family: ‘Just Great People’

ABC11 is learning more about the family killed in a triple shooting in Harnett County earlier this week. As word of that tragedy spread, it led to an outpouring of tributes for Danny Richards, his wife, Sabrina Richards, and his mother, Clara Richards, throughout Harnett County and Cumberland County, where the family did most of their charitable work.

Danny, 57, and Sabrina, 54, were both longtime Army servicemembers, and on Thursday, fellow veterans remembered the hard work the couple committed themselves to in Fayetteville.

“They were just great people. I mean, people that served this community faithfully from the time they came up until the time I talked to him,” said Renee Elder, Founder and CEO of the nonprofit Veterans Empowering Veterans.

Elder told ABC11 that to her, Danny and Sabrina weren’t just colleagues in the fight to help those who needed it most — they were dear friends. Elder and Danny had just spoken on the phone last week about a local veteran struggling to find housing.

“The last thing we talked about was prayer,” she said. “He asked me, ‘Do you pray with him? I said, Yeah, I pray with him all the time, I pray with him all the time.'”

Danny and Sabrina were shot and killed in their home Monday by a 15-year-old nephew that Danny’s son, Khalil Richards, said they had recently taken in. Clara Richards, 74, was also killed in the shooting, while the couple’s 10-year-old adopted son called the police. The child was unharmed.

After leaving the Army, the couple turned their focus to helping others, providing resources for veterans and the less fortunate, and getting those who needed it access to food, clothing, and shelter.

Elder, also an Army veteran who says she deals with PTSD, said the couple became spiritual guides, always willing to provide comfort and prayer — as they did with anyone who sought them out.

“If I needed somebody to confide in, it was him and her. So on a spiritual level, they helped me a lot. They helped me to mature,” she said.

Written by Sean Coffey