North Carolina's Worst Massacre... (Carthage Nursing Home)

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]On March 29th of 2009, a 46-year-old man decided that this day was the day he was going to snap. He went to his wife's place of work or a nursing home loaded with guns and he tried to get where she was, but it was locked. So instead of taking her out, he decided to unleash his rage on the rest of the nursing home. This is North Carolina's worst massacre.

[00:00:34]Hello friend and welcome to High Time Crime. My name's Joel and on here I specialize in true crime. Today we're talking about the Carthage nursing home shooting and this is a case that very few people know despite how bad it was.

[00:00:58]Robert Kenneth Wayne Stewart was born on September 12th of 1963 in Robinson County, North Carolina. When he was still young, his family moved into the Eastwood area of Moore County. His father worked as a house painter and his mother worked in an office for a paving company in Pine Bluff. Robert finished middle school in Aberdine and went on to attend Pinerest High School, but he dropped out before graduating. People who knew him back then described him more as quiet, isolated, and a loner.

[00:01:33]But even then, there were signs of a temper that would follow him into adulthood.

[00:01:39]Some people knew him by the nickname Heiwee, typically used by his hunting buddies. The nickname seemed ironic given Robert's size. He was 6'2 and around 300 lb. In one account, he was even described as burly with a messy beard. That when he was angry, people around him noticed. The word that came up again and again was temper. It wasn't normal frustration that Robert was dealing with, but a temper that made people afraid to be around him. He had once worked as a house painter, and for some time, he even had his own painting business. But by the years leading to somehow all of that failed. Robert filed for bankruptcy. His work dried up and he was receiving disability because of an old injury involving a mule falling onto his legs. But after losing the painting business, Robert sank into a depression.

[00:02:45]He also had breathing problems and had to use oxygen. In court documents, he listed himself as disabled with an income of $786 a month and no dependence. At the same time, he was drinking heavily and shooting guns a lot. He legally owned multiple guns and used empty barrels in the yard for target practice. He hunted, spent time around other hunters, and had been connected to a hunting club. One hunting club acquaintance by the name of Tim described him as hottempered and said Robert would start disputes but then back away once things moved closer to a real confrontation. That hunting club was the Clay Road Farm Hunt Club in Moore County. Robert had joined it back in the mid 1990s, but even there around people who shared his interest in hunting and guns, his drinking and temper became a problem. He alienated other members and he was eventually kicked out of the club after threatening one of its founders, a guy named Larry Allred. So even in a place where Robert may have fit in, his anger and behavior just pushed people away. There were also a lot of troubling things that he was saying in the weeks leading to.

[00:04:04]According to Sue Griffin, one of his former wives, Robert had recently started telling relatives that he had cancer, that he was preparing for a long trip, that he was preparing to go away.

[00:04:19]A different wife's family said that they did not know of any confirmed cancer diagnosis, although they did know that he used oxygen for breathing problems.

[00:04:30]So, by the time we get to March of 2009, there were already signs that his life was unraveling. But to understand why he eventually ended up walking into a nursing home with guns, it's important to talk about his rocky relationship with his wife, Wanda Neil. Robert Stewart and Wanda Neil's relationship went back decades. Wanda later testified that she met him at an Aberdeene roller skating rink when she was 14. only a couple of years later when she was 17.

[00:05:02]They got married and her father signed the marriage license. That first marriage though ended within just a couple of years. After this, both of them moved on to other relationships.

[00:05:16]There was also an even earlier pattern that people around Wanda later connected to control. Robert had been married once before Wanda when he was 18 years old.

[00:05:27]That first marriage though only lasted a couple of months. Then in 1983 he married Wanda who was 17. This marriage failed within about 3 years. The reasons that people later pointed to were the same things that kept coming up again and again. Robert's drinking, his violent temper, and his possessiveness.

[00:05:52]Wanda's mother later said that his rage could explode over anything where he could seem fine one moment and then the next he was suddenly set off. But Robert's attachment to Wanda did not seem to disappear. One of his former wives, Sue Griffin, said that even during their marriage, he still talked about Wanda all the time and that he compared Sue to Wanda and complained that Wanda did things differently. Sue later said that it was clear that Robert had never fully gotten over Wanda, even after years had passed and both of them had built other lives. After more than a decade apart, Robert and Wanda eventually reconnected in 2001 after the death of Robert's father. In June of 2002, they got married for the second time. By then, they were not super young, starting fresh. These were adults returning to a relationship with a long history of attachment and emotional baggage. They lived outside Robins, North Carolina, about 20 minutes from Pine Lake Health and Rehabilitation Center, where Wanda worked as a nursing assistant. Wanda later described the marriage as both good and bad. Their life together was not one constant emergency everyone could see from the outside. There were ordinary days and probably moments that looked normal to other people, but there was also fear.

[00:07:27]Robert's possessiveness got worse over time. Robert reportedly did not want Wanda to go anywhere alone. If she left the house, he had to be with her to supervise her. And then there was the incident that finally pushed Wanda to leave. Robert reportedly put a gun next to her head and threatened to kill her.

[00:07:51]After that, Wanda left her husband for good and she moved back in with her family. But leaving did not mean that she was safe. After Wanda left, Robert began obsessively calling her family each morning at about 300 a.m. claiming that there was an emergency and he needed to see her and her parents.

[00:08:16]Robert also knew exactly where Wanda worked. He knew that she was a nursing assistant at Pine Lake. He knew that the nursing home was a big part of her routine. And if he wanted to find her, well, her workplace was an obvious place to go. So, in the days leading to Robert's behavior was very alarming. He had been telling basically everybody that he had cancer and was going to check out soon. And he was talking about going away. and he wrote a ton of notes.

[00:08:50]One note focused directly on Wanda and it read, "I love Wanda, but she left me for the last time." Followed by an angry emphasis of the last time. Another document was titled Last Will and Testament. In it, he wrote about having prostate cancer and said that he wanted to go to Montana or Maine to get away.

[00:09:14]and he wrote about going off to just end it. These notes did not describe a man simply upset about a breakup. They showed someone who was fixated, angry, and moving towards something final. When he eventually snapped, this private crisis he was experiencing turned into something awful. At the end of March, Robert went to bed. And when he woke up the next day, he could only think of pure evil.

[00:09:49]March 29th of 2009 was a Sunday morning in Carthage, North Carolina. Many people in town were at church and Pine Lake Health and Rehabilitation Center was moving through the routine of a nursing home on a weekend. Residents needed breakfast, medication, help getting dressed, help moving from beds to wheelchairs, and support from staff who knew their needs. Some residents lived with dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

[00:10:18]Some were elderly and frail. Some waited for family members to visit. Others were simply beginning just another day. No one inside Pine Lake expected to be in danger that day. On the other side of town at about 9:00 a.m., Robert Stewart was getting ready for a war. He brought with him multiple weapons, a 22 caliber hunting rifle, a 12- gauge pumpaction shotgun, a 357 caliber revolver, and a semi-automatic pistol. He also had a ton of ammunition. A little bit before 10:00 a.m., he got everything ready into his Jeep Cherokee. And then a little after 10:00 a.m. he drove to the nursing home.

[00:11:01]He went there with the sole purpose of killing his ex-wife, but not only that, anyone who got into his way. This all began in the parking lot. Wanda's PT cruiser was parked outside of the nursing home, but she was not inside of it. Robert fired through the rear window anyway, though, and hit the seats. He then made his way toward the entrance and opened fire on a Ford pickup truck.

[00:11:27]A guy named Michael Cotton, who was a visitor, was just getting out of the truck when he was hit in the left shoulder. After being wounded, Michael ran into the building and called 911, giving one of the first warnings that something terrible was happening.

[00:11:42]>> 911, y'all need to get on over here at Pine Lake.

[00:11:45]>> Pine Lake, we've got help on the way, sir. Do you know where?

[00:11:48]>> I've already been shot.

[00:11:49]>> You have been shot. Inside Pine Lake though, the emergency arrived in fragments. Some people heard gunfire outside. Some people saw Michael injured. Some heard calls for help. But several people called 911 trying to explain what was happening while the danger was still moving toward them. One 911 caller described a white man with a beard and a shotgun inside of the building. Compared to many other locations, this nursing home was very vulnerable. Not everyone could sprint toward an exit. Some residents probably didn't even understand what was happening. Some needed walkers, wheelchairs, oxygen, or help just to move. Meanwhile, as people inside tried to understand what was going on, Robert was still outside. He was changing weapons and preparing to enter. He placed the rifle on the roof of his Jeep and switched to the shotgun. With the shotgun in his hands and other firearms around the waist of his overalls, he entered Pine Lake's main hall. This main hall was the area where Wanda normally worked. But when the chaos began to break out, Wanda hid in a bathroom inside the locked Alzheimer's unit, close enough to the danger to understand what was happening, but separated from him by a secured door and a code that Robert did not have. Once Robert Stewart stepped inside a Pine Lake, he was ready to strike. While Wanda Neil and other nurses were beginning to understand what was happening, they started calling co-workers cell phones, warning them that someone was in the hallway with a gun. Wanda said that they were being told there was a bearded man out there who had been shooting, and she had an awful feeling it was Robert. The nurses moved patients into the TV room, and they put a chair against the main door, pulled the blinds down, and Wanda went to the nearest bathroom and shut the door. Even as she was hiding, though, she said part of her wanted to go back into the hallway to check on patients outside of the unit, the people that she called her people. She stayed behind the locked doors, and Robert never got the code, though. Robert did go to the Alzheimer's unit and try to get inside, but because it was locked, he couldn't.

[00:14:02]And so, he was very angry and decided to take his anger out on everybody else.

[00:14:07]Right away, Robert began firing at elderly residents and staff inside. Some victims were in rooms, some were in the hallway, some were in wheelchairs. Staff members tried to react, some tried to get away, some tried to move people out of his path, but this was a nursing home. Moving residents safely takes time and in those few minutes there was no time. One of the few people who tried to help was nurse Jerry Ovant Jr. Jerry was 39 years old and he had served in the United States Coast Guard before becoming a nurse. He earned his nursing degree from Sand Hills Community College. He was engaged to Jill Darmmo who was a co-orker at Pine Lake with him. She later found him on the floor bleeding and unfortunately he did not survive. During the shooting, Jerry was trying to move patients away from danger when he was shot. Robert killed people he had zero connection to. Their names were Luis Declair, Lillian Dunn, Tessy Garner, John Goldston, Bessie Hedrickk, Margaret Johnson, and Jesse Vernon Muser. While Robert was inside, armed and still causing carnage, the only Carthage police officer on duty was on his way. Justin Garner was 25 years old, and he did not have a rifle, ballistic armor, or a formal active shooter protocol. He arrived with a service pistol and the dispatch information that someone was shooting people inside of a nursing home. Garner soon went inside the nursing home completely alone. And when he entered, he saw elderly residents wandering through the lobby and hallway. There were shell casings, there was blood, there were people who had been shot. And he later described seeing a woman in a wheelchair who had been shot while several people stood nearby in silence, appearing not to understand what was happening. Garner kept moving, though. He followed the hallway deeper into the building, passing victims in rooms and wheelchairs. Then, as he rounded a corner, he saw Robert. Robert was in the process of reloading his shotgun. When Garner found him, the shooting was not over yet. Robert was still armed, still moving, and very capable of killing a lot more people. Garner repeatedly ordered him to drop the gun, but Robert did not. Instead, he began to aim the shotgun toward the officer. Garner fired his 40 caliber Glock and hit him in the upper body. Robert fired two and shotgun pellets struck Garner in the leg and foot. He fell to the floor, wounded but alive. After that, Garner had to restrain him. Because Robert was so large, he linked two pairs of handcuffs together to secure his hands behind his back. As officers from other agencies rushed toward Pine Lake, Garner radioed that the suspect was down. Both Garner and Robert were taken to First Health Moore Regional Hospital. Robert reportedly begged Garner to kill him while handcuffed on the floor, but Garner did not. He stopped the shooting, kept him alive, and made sure the families would have the chance to see him convicted. By the end, six people were dead at the scene. Others were rushed to the hospital where two more victims died later that day. In total, Robert killed eight people and injured three others. The entire attack had lasted only a couple of minutes.

[00:17:28]According to prosecutors, despite going there to target his wife, Robert failed to kill her and ended up murdering innocent people instead. In 2011, Robert Stewart was finally convicted of eight counts of secondderee murder and was sentenced to what would amount to be the rest of his life in prison. He admitted to shooting 11 people and killing eight.

[00:17:50]And the verdict ensured he would never leave prison. He will die there. But this story should not end with the coward Robert Stewart. We know that he was a horrible person. That was obvious.

[00:18:04]I don't think people realized just how truly horrible he was, though. I don't want to say that some people are excuses for humans, but in a lot of these cases, the shoe just fits. The victims of Pine Lake were not background characters in the story of the man who killed them.

[00:18:23]They were parents, grandparents, workers, spouses, patients, and loved ones. Jerry Avant Jr. was the youngest at 39 years old and a nurse. He was a Coast Guard veteran, a fiance, and a caregiver who was working to move patients away from danger when he was killed. He was a hero. Tessy Garner was 75 years old, and she's remembered for the Christmas baskets she made, and for the life she lived before one violent morning made her name part of a tragedy.

[00:18:53]Lillian Eugina Nald Dunn was 89 years old and a former textile worker who made quilts, cooked, gardened, and preserved food from vegetables she grew herself.

[00:19:03]She had five total children in her life and loved watching Clint Eastwood. Jesse Vernon Muser was 88 years old and a retired railroad machinist who spent more than 40 years fixing trains and who was at Pine Lake waiting to visit his wife. He was also a talented woodworker and gunsmith. He was a devoted father and husband. Bessie Hedrickk was 78 years old and she once owned a beauty shop and was remembered as a distinct loved person with a history far bigger than the way she died. John Walter Sunny Goldston was 78 years old and a grandfather of 14 who liked jigsaw puzzles and cheered for the Carolina Tarheelss. Margaret Johnson was 89 years old and had worked and lived on a family farm in Chatham County. She was a mother and wife and grandmother. She was a homemaker growing up and a big member of church. Luis Declare was 98 years old and the oldest victim. She had moved to Carthage to be close to her daughter after a long life that had taken her from New Jersey to North Carolina. She loved playing slots at the casinos and enjoyed bowling. She had grandchildren and great grandchildren and they all loved her. Rest in peace to all of these innocent people who didn't deserve this in the slightest. Lastly, I want to mention another survivor of this case, Wanda Neil, Robert's ex-wife. After this happened, Wanda experienced a lot of survivors guilt and would later attempt to take herself out before the trial. I do feel sorry that she had to go through all of this because of her violent aranged husband and she and other nurses also saved people that day. So she shouldn't feel guilty as it's not her fault.