Pain remains 5 years after fire
By Tom Steadman Staff Writer
Greensboro News & Record
February 11, 2007

On a cold, blustery morning that followed a bright and sunny Valentine's Day, the news was shocking and tragic.

Fire during the night had destroyed a Howard Street apartment complex. Four bodies -- all from one unit -- were found in the smoldering rubble beneath the building's collapsed stairway.

A graduate student at nearby UNCG, charged with arson and murder, admitted setting the Campus Walk Apartments fire as a prank that got out of control. She was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Five years later, relatives of the victims and the dozens of residents who managed to escape still grieve and search for meaning in an event that changed their lives forever.

"It's not something you get over," Carolyn Llewellyn, of Greensboro, said in a recent interview.

Her daughters, Donna and Rachel, along with their roommate, Beth Harris, and Donna's boyfriend, Ryan Bek, perished in that Feb. 15, 2002, fire. They were in their early to mid-20s.

"I can't help but think about what my children would be if they had lived," Carolyn Llewellyn said. "Donna would be 29, and she was about to enter graduate school. Rachel would be 26 and working as a nurse."

Campus Walk was home to three dozen young men and women, many college students. All but four escaped, many by jumping to the ground from their windows.

Some of those survivors said the deadly blaze also had a lasting impact on them.

"After I saw the four people who died, who I knew to be very good people, it made me realize I had a purpose in my life,'' said Clayton Halls, now 27, who in 2002 lived in a third-floor Campus Walk unit.

That night, Halls said, the smell of smoke awakened him. "I went to the door and opened it, and the fire was there," he recalled. "I ran to the deck, and the deck was on fire."

Finally, Halls and his roommate lowered themselves from a bedroom window and dropped to the ground.

"My faith grew," he said. "After the fire, I started to change myself. I really wanted to be different. I gave up cursing and partying."
Halls, married and a UNCG graduate, works these days as a personal fitness trainer. "It's still with me, but in a good way," he said. "It has changed my life for the better."

Painful memories
As they have the past several Valentine's Days, former Campus Walk residents will gather this week at Fat Dog's Grille, a pub adjacent to the apartment complex.

Logan Bell is among those planning to attend. At the time of the fire, he was a 20-year-old community college student trying to improve his grades and get into Greensboro College.

He was the last resident to escape via the stairway that night, he said.

Five years ago, customers and workers at the pub, then known as Hugo's, helped save lives by awakening apartment residents and giving them shelter.

"Some of us meet there to reminisce," said Bell, who works at the Village Tavern restaurant.

But not everyone linked to the event is interested in talking about it.

Jim and Virginia Bek left the Triad after the fire, moving from Kernersville to suburban Phoenix. They declined to be interviewed for this story.

Harris' mother, Krystal Knight, said the tragedy that killed her daughter, a UNCG music major, is never far from her mind.
"It will never get any better," said Knight, of Cary. "It doesn't change. It doesn't change."

Knight's former husband, Bob Harris, said he gets frequent reminders -- such as a banquet last month that recognized music scholarship recipients at UNCG, where the family, through its own funding and public donations, has set up a scholarship in their daughter's name.

Harris said he has forgiven Janet Danahey, who started the fire and is now at the N.C. Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh. He said they exchanged letters for about a year after she was sent to prison.

In her letters, Harris said, Danahey was apologetic and contrite, writing large portions on what she had learned about the victims and their interests and her hopes for memorializing them.

"She wanted to work with abused women and start a Bible study group and form a choral group in Beth's honor," Harris said.

"Some of these things, the correctional department wouldn't let her do, as I recall. They said they already had enough choral groups."

Harris, from Lewisville, said he used his letters to repeat many of the messages he told Danahey when he visited her at the Guilford County Jail after her arrest.

"I reassured her that I still forgave her but she still has to serve the sentence that was imposed," Harris said in an even tone.

"I still mourn my daughter's loss, but my forgiveness for Janet is never going to go away. Or my belief in God. He commands us to forgive."

'Life goes on'
Danahey, then a 23-year-old UNCG graduate student, told authorities she used lighter fluid to ignite a box of Christmas decorations and a futon outside the apartment of her ex-boyfriend. It was a prank, she said, but gusting winds blew the fire that she set about 2 a.m. out of control.

The building burst into flames and killed the four people in Apartment K -- on the same level across the breezeway from the apartment of Danahey's former boyfriend.

Danahey fled to her parents' home in Matthews, near Charlotte, where she was arrested.

She declined several recent requests the News & Record made for an interview.

Her father, David Danahey, a retired airline mechanic, said he and his wife visit their daughter in prison each month. He said she is doing well there but didn't offer many details.

"Life goes on," he said.

Danahey said he still strongly opposes a state law that allows a person to be found guilty of first-degree murder and eligible for capital punishment if a victim died during the commission of a felony such as arson. No intent to kill is required.

Janet Danahey agreed to a life sentence in a plea bargain after prosecutors said they intended to seek the death penalty against her.
"This is a completely unfair law," David Danahey said in a recent phone interview.

He said his daughter continues to get letters from supporters, some of whom mounted an unsuccessful campaign to overturn the felony-murder law after she was sentenced.

Proposed legislation to remove the death penalty from the law was introduced in the General Assembly during 2003 but went nowhere after prosecutors, relatives of the Campus Walk victims and others spoke against it.

The debate could resume. A state House committee has recommended the assembly study ways to eliminate the felony-murder rule.

Focus on healing
Clayton Halls, the fire survivor, said he holds no grudge against Danahey but believes she is paying the correct penalty for her actions. "Four people were killed," he said.

Carolyn and Jim Llewellyn, who lost their only two children in the fire, don't understand how Danahey could be seen as a victim. But they said they spend little time thinking about that day. Instead, the Greensboro couple have focused on healing, growing and honoring the memory of their daughters.

They established a scholarship fund at Greensboro College for Donna Llewellyn, an honor graduate who worked in the school's financial aid office when she died. They also set up a nursing scholarship at UNCG, where Rachel Llewellyn was a junior in 2002.

Various community groups planted trees honoring the victims at Greensboro College, UNCG and Guilford College, where Ryan Bek attended school, as well as at Lindley Park, Page High School and Irving Park Methodist Church, in the Llewellyns' neighborhood.
"The outpouring of support from the community really helped us," said Carolyn Llewellyn, who along with her husband went through grief counseling.

"People sometimes seem to think you should get over it," she said. "But it's not something you get over."

Llewellyn said she is reminded of the tragedy by events such as the recent fire that destroyed Eastern Guilford High School. That also was a case of arson.

"Don't people get it?" she said. "Arson isn't a prank."

Jim Llewellyn, an engineer, has done research and pointed to statistics that show North Carolina ranks second nationally in the number of college fires, with nearly 80 percent in off-campus housing.

"It turns out, this is not a unique occurrence," he said.

His wife added: "Parents need to pay attention to fire prevention. When my daughters moved into that apartment, and I helped them move in, I thought they would be safe on the third floor. I was thinking about burglary. Fire never even crossed my mind."

Building anew
A new brick apartment building occupies the spot where the old Campus Walk complex stood. The replacement is named Campus Crossing and is protected by a commercial-code sprinkler system.

Several current residents -- many UNCG students -- said they weren't aware of the deadly fire from five years ago.

"We heard something about it, but we weren't sure if they were telling the truth," said James Hendricks, a senior who moved in last May.

Ryan Holton, 29, a nurse in the intensive care unit at Moses Cone Hospital, knows all too well that the fire was real. He had been at Campus Walk that night in 2002, visiting his girlfriend, Rachel Llewellyn. But he didn't stay.

"I just felt this urge to go home," Holton said. "I really think the Holy Spirit was telling me to go home. There's a reason why."
Holton and Rachel Llewellyn attended Daystar Church in northern Greensboro. Friends there helped him get through his grief, he said.

After more than a year, he began dating a woman he met at the church. They married, and three months ago, their son, Jonah, was born.

"I think Rachel would have wanted me to move on and not mope around all the time," Holton said. "She'd have wanted me to meet someone and be happy."

Holton has remained close to her parents. They meet often for lunch. "I thought it was the right thing to do,'' he said. "I knew they would need someone, and we had always been friends.''

Holton also asked the Llewellyns to serve as godparents to his son.

"I knew they would never have grandkids," Holton said.

The Llewellyns said they consider Ryan and Holly Holton almost as their own children and are happy he found someone.

"Having them as part of my life is very important to me right now,'' Carolyn Llewellyn said.

But the pain of their loss will always be there, they said. There are always reminders.

"You'll hear parents saying they wish their kids wouldn't do this or do that," Jim Llewellyn said. "They don't appreciate them as much as they should."

Never miss a chance to hug your children or to tell them you love them, Carolyn Llewellyn said.

"You don't realize how precious kids are," she said, "until you don't have them anymore."

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