HARTSVILLE, SC (WBTW) – Smiles mixed with tears at the Darlington Memory Gardens in Hartsville Sunday afternoon as a nine-year-old girl and her grandmother were laid to rest.
It’s been a week now since Denise Couplin, 52, and her granddaughter Deziyah Davis were tragically shot down inside their Darlington County home.
Sunday, family and friends got together to remember not the way they died, but the huge impact these two lives had on those who loved them.
Maurice Royster remembers his mother Denise as a straight shooter who loved with all she had.
“She was serious, man,” he remembers. “Some people didn’t understand her love because my mom wasn’t no joke, she was real. She was from Baltimore city; if she gotta cuss you out for you to understand then so be it; if she gotta slap you for you to understand then so be it.”
Her love even extended beyond her family–to the very people who ended her life.
“She even tried to help them out,” Maurice recalled. “Gave them a place to stay, helped take care of their little baby…they took her kindness for weakness.”
While the family mostly smiled and laughed remembering the woman who raised many of them, perhaps the biggest loss was that of young Deziyah, cut down at only nine years old.
“She was a beautiful little girl,” Royster cried. “She didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserves this really.”
Maurice says he and the family will go on, but they’re seeking justice in the highest degree for their fallen loved ones.
“We’re going for the death penalty,” he said. “I fell the way things happened with my niece and my mom, she deserves justice, and life and justice.”
They say until then and even after, they will make sure Denise and Deziyah are never forgotten.
“We got plenty of grandkids, grandkids on the way, plenty of family,” Royster smiled. “The legacy lives on.”
