Nashville families reflect on lost loved ones amid the city’s rising homicides

Inside the Midtown Hills Police precinct Tuesday night, people gathered to make holiday ornaments. They spanned a wide range of ages and races, but they all have one thing in common: They’ve lost loved ones in violent crimes.

Homicides have continued to climb in Davidson County. More than 100 people have been killed this year, which is up 40% from 2019. It’s part of a national trend of rising violence.

One of those 100 people killed this year was Amelia Griswould’s son, Dewaine.

“You can’t even imagine what it’s like, unless you’ve lost a child,” says Amelia Griswould. “And I’ve lost two.”

Griswould speaks and moves slowly, as if weighed down by her grief. In front of her are two ornaments — one for her son DaVontae, who was only 15 when he was shot and killed a few years ago, and the other for her older son, Dewaine, who was killed in October.

For her, only two months have passed.

For others, it’s been years or decades.

Paige Pfleger WPLN News

Ornaments remembering people killed in homicides.

Judy Davis has been coming to this ornament making event for 16 years, ever since her son, Chris, was shot and killed.

Some of the other group members refer to her as the “bow lady,” because she folds shimmering ribbons into ornate bows for the ornaments. She estimates she’s made hundreds — to the point where her hands hurt when she goes home.

“It’s the least I can do, if it helps someone feel welcome,” she says, while folding, “And feel a little more at ease with what’s happened.”

The ornaments are part of an annual event called Season to Remember, put on by MNPD’s Victim Intervention Program. They will be hung from a tree in Centennial Park during a ceremony on Thursday at 5:45 p.m.

Davis says being part of this group, and the Season to Remember event, has helped her cope with the loss of her son.

“It’s nice to be around people that understand what going through a trauma like that is like,” she says. “It takes long enough to get over a normal death, but when you lose your child, and it’s a horrible trauma like a homicide, it takes even longer.”

Paige Pfleger WPLN

Judy Davis estimates she’s made hundreds of bows to decorate memorial ornaments.

Sitting at the next table over, Elaine Warfield is working on two memorial ornaments. One is for her son, Jeremiah. He was 12 years old when he was shot and killed in 1995.

“It was just amazing how smart he was, and how brilliant he was,” Warfield says with tears streaming down her cheeks. “He had a great smile. I called it a Kool-Aid smile.”

The other ornament is for her granddaughter, Harmony, who was only 7 when she was killed in 2017.

Warfield says she can’t turn the news on anymore. Every time she hears about a shooting, she thinks of the mothers who lost their child, and the wounds feels fresh again.