Woman hires a caretaker for her 74-year-old father. Then she finds out what happened to his $330,000 house: ‘She bought a car two hours after he died’
Surprise!
A worried daughter’s routine wellness check turned into a shocking discovery. When Nora Rowland arrived at her elderly father’s home in South Carolina after weeks without hearing from him, she found his belongings gone, strangers living inside, and family photographs replaced with people she couldn’t identify.
An Inside Edition (a TV news magazine) TikTok video showed Rowland speaking with the channel’s representative, Jim Murray. She said, “Everything is gone.” A few seconds later, footage that appears to be from Rowland shows her seemingly inside the house, asking, “Who are these children? This is my house.” Speaking to Inside Edition, Rowland added, “I couldn’t believe it. It was so…It was so bizarre.”
Rowland also alleged that when she rang the doorbell, the woman who answered, her father’s caretaker, told her he was no more. “I was like, ‘What do you mean he’s dead? What happened?’ And she just was like, ‘I, I, I’m not gonna tell you anything more. I’ll be there in a minute.’” Rowland alleged that after she left, she entered her father’s house through an unlocked window.
Rowland was arrested for trespassing
The woman living in Rowland’s father’s home allegedly called the police on Rowland after Rowland entered. She was handcuffed and held in judicial custody for three days, Inside Edition noted.
But who was the woman? The source said her name was Sarah Smalls, a nurse hired about three months ago through an agency to care for Rowland’s father, Robert Rowland, a 74-year-old retired architect. Nora Rowland said of Smalls, “I hired her to care for him, not to steal from him.”
Inside Edition reported that less than a month after Smalls began caring for Nora’s father, they moved him out of his home and into a senior living facility. Two weeks later, the deed to his house was supposedly transferred “for the grand sum of five bucks.” According to Nora Rowland, the house was actually worth $330,000.
Nora Rowland also alleged that Smalls accessed her father’s bank account. Speaking to Inside Edition, she said, “She bought a car two hours after he died. She went on shopping sprees. And the police are doing absolutely nothing.” The source also said Rowland filed a civil lawsuit to try to get her father’s home back.
Inside Edition’s video received around 36K comments. Some people believed the woman should be held accountable. One person said, “This is felony elderly abuse. The nurse belongs in jail and the house needs to be re-deeded to the daughter.” Another wrote, “He dies, and the nurse doesn’t even have the decency to tell the family. Her license needs to be revoked.”
A few raised other concerns. One person commented, “The daughter should have been notified of her father’s death by the senior living facility. Something is not right with this story.” Another noted, “3 days? They moved in THREE days after he died and didn’t inform the family? Ah hell no.”
According to a CBS News article published on September 3, 2026, Griswold Home Care Services, the company Smalls worked for, made a statement following the incident. It read, “The allegation described in recent reporting is serious and concerning. We were made aware of this allegation for the first time this past weekend, despite the events in question having allegedly taken place several years ago.”
Additionally, the company also seemingly refused to associate itself with Smalls and said that she “was an independent caregiver on the Griswold Care Pairing for Myrtle Beach registry.” They also said Smalls had passed the required background check before joining the registry.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
Follow The Mary Sue:
