Allison Griffor

Death of 5-year-old has lawmakers looking to pass new bill

 

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) -- In the wake of 5-year-old Allison Griffor's death, Rep. Chip Limehouse and Rep. Wendell G. Gilliard are working on a new bill that would strengthen penalties for those who discharge firearms into or at homes.

"In essence, treat homes as if they were people because when you shoot into a home and you murder anyone, that is a very, very heinous crime. We need to have our state laws reflect that," said Limehouse.

Allison Griffor died at MUSC on October 28 from injuries she received when someone fired a gun through the door of her home. The incident has been the topic of much discussion, as investigators with multiple law enforcement agencies continue to look for leads that may lead to the person or persons responsible for her death.

"The entire community is hurting over Allison's death," said Limehouse. "The death of a child is the worst thing that can happen to a family."

According to Limehouse, a spokesperson for the Griffor family suggested the newly proposed law be named in honor of Allison.

"We want the strictest penalties we can apply. If there is a death of a person, then certainly the death penalty ought to be implied."

Limehouse said on Wednesday the new bill has already been filed and is a combination and revision of drive-by shooting and home invasion bills previously introduced by Rep. Gilliard.

"I don't believe the penalties for firing into a house are the same as murder in the first degree. You can't say it was an accident. It was not an accident. That's what we're working through right now."

The two lawmakers hope the bill would make it so that anyone found guilty of shooting into a home could be held to the same group of charges as anyone who has shot at a person.

State lawmakers will take up Allison's Law in January.

 Allison's Law

Allison Griffor

 

A sound, a blast, a child lies dying

William Griffor recalls night of horror

Their house tells the story of people who left in a hurry.

Halloween cards from grandparents hang on the refrigerator. A half-empty canister of animal crackers sits on the kitchen counter. Toiletries clutter the bathroom sink.

William and Jennifer Griffor will rely on friends to sell their family's remaining belongings — toy cars, stuffed animals, an old-fashioned bread box — at a yard sale this weekend.

The person who fired a shotgun into their West Ashley house on Oct. 25, fatally wounding 5-year-old Allison Griffor as she slept in her bed, remains at large.

Charleston police on Monday night arrested three men in connection with an armed robbery involving a shotgun at the Pierpont Bar around the corner from the Griffors' house, but investigators have not confirmed any link between the shooting and the robbery or other recent crimes in the area.

That's why the Griffors said they left for their home state of Michigan after a memorial for Allison on Saturday afternoon.

"We can't come back to West Ashley with all the shotgun stuff," William Griffor said Wednesday. "I don't know where we're supposed to go."

Smoky fingerprint dust covers the white door to their rented home at 1733 Pierpont Ave., and a missing panel of wood gives a peek into how so many lives changed so suddenly inside this little home last week.

Someone roused the Griffor family at 1 a.m. on Oct. 25 and opened fire with a shotgun from outside their front door.

Several of the buckshot pellets traveled through the door, through a bedroom wall and into Allison Griffor's head as she lay asleep on the bottom of a bunk bed she shared with her older brother. Their baby brother slept in a crib on the other side of the room.

Griffor family spokesman Richard Douglas allowed The Post and Courier inside the home Wednesday, to see how the unthinkable happened, to see how an intruder's attack mortally wounded a sleeping kindergartener.

Chunks of wood had been blown away from the bunk bed's headboard and from one of the posts.
"If she had slept on the other side of the bed, it wouldn't have turned out this way," Douglas said.
William Griffor said he and his wife heard someone kicking the door early that morning. When he walked toward the front of the darkened house, he heard a shotgun blast and ran into his children's room, across a small hallway from his own.

Not realizing that Allison had been shot, he scooped up the children from of their beds and put them on the hardwood floor, away from the window, in his and his wife's bedroom. Griffor said Wednesday that he thought he heard Allison cry, but now realizes that he probably instead heard the sound of life leaving her.

"I think she was immediately with the Lord," Griffor said.

He walked back to the front of his home to "watch the hole" and make sure the shooter didn't try to come in. Finally, after Jennifer Griffor spent an agonizing eight minutes on the phone with a 911 dispatcher, he heard a walkie-talkie outside and knew deputies had arrived.

When they turned on the lights inside the home, he saw the pool of blood around his daughter and realized that he had mistaken her blood for his own.

"Then we were at the hospital," he said.

Allison died there two days later when the Griffors made the agonizing decision to take her off life support after brain scans showed no activity. They donated her organs, which went to three children.

The Griffors held a small gathering for their daughter Saturday at Crosstowne Christian Church before heading to Michigan, where they plan to bury Allison on Nov. 5.

A fleet of minivans and sport utility vehicles pulled up to the house Wednesday morning, and an army of mothers from church, school and the neighborhood hopped out, ready to clean.

The front porch still looks like a shrine to Allison, with partially deflated smiley face balloons that say "Get Well" and a clutch of stuffed animals dropped off by supporters.

Sea shells on the ground recall the family's trips to the beach during a time that made sense. Now, 7-year-old Aiden only knows that his sister went to heaven and 2-year-old Lucas wakes up at night, confused.

William Griffor said the family keeps praying, adding, "We were very happy."


TO HELP

How to help

You can make a donation to the Benefit of Allison Griffor fund at any First Federal of Charleston location.

Allison Griffor

 

Universal love for Allison

Family, friends honor 5-year-old killed in home

Allison Griffor would have wanted it this way: to say goodbye, not with dark clothes and crying, but with balloons, brownies and bright-colored dresses.

Classmates, church friends and their parents gathered Saturday afternoon at Crosstowne Christian Church on Bees Ferry Road to celebrate the 5-year-old's life. Allison died Thursday when, with her family and an entire community praying for her recovery, her brain scans failed to show any activity.


Someone fired a shotgun through the Griffors' home on Pierpont Avenue around 1 a.m. Tuesday, while Allison lay asleep in her bed. Several pellets traveled through the front door, through a wall and into the little girl's head.

The search for her killer continues, and Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon on Friday warned that if people with information don't come forward, they will face prosecution along with the person who fired the gun.

William Griffor said his daughter taught him love and, because of her caring personality, he and his wife, Jennifer, decided to donate her organs. The family said Saturday that Allison had saved three children's lives through transplants, one in Massachusetts, one in Ohio and one locally.

"Even in this terrible time, God's love just shines through it all," William Griffor said Saturday. With smiling photos of his daughter illuminated on giant television screens around the church, he said the family is neither angry nor vengeful.

He called the gathering a form of closure for all the children who knew Allison and needed a way to say goodbye to their friend.

"We will never have closure, but this is for them," he said.

Allison attended kindergarten at Drayton Hall Elementary School, where her older brother, Aiden, attended second grade. His classmates came to say goodbye to their buddy, too, before Aiden, his parents and his 2-year-old brother Lucas return to their home state of Michigan in the coming days.

Little girls competed over who could draw a better heart as they carefully signed their names in markers on an enlarged photograph of Allison where friends wrote messages to her.

"I love you Allison. Kendall."

"We will miss you, Allison. Love little Eddie."

Children sitting at short tables between the church seating crafted cards for the Griffors using colored construction paper and puffy stickers. No one actually took to the podium to speak at the gathering.
This was meant, as Allison's maternal grandfather explained, to be a happy event in her honor.


TO HELP 

To help the Griffor family, you can make a donation to the "Benefit of Allison Griffor" at any First Federal of Charleston location.

Allison Griffor

 

 

Benefit set for Griffor brothers

Christmas Day will mark two months since 5-year-old Allison Griffor was fatally shot as she slept in her bed, and a fundraiser Sunday aims to make sure her brothers get plenty of presents this holiday.

The benefit, called "Angels for Allison," promises live music from 1 to 7 p.m. at Plan B in the Ashley Town Center in West Ashley. Anyone who brings a gift for brothers, 7-year-old Aiden or 2-year-old Lucas, gets in free; otherwise, it's $5 at the door.

Allison, a kindergartner at Drayton Hall Elementary School, died following an attempted home invasion Oct. 25 at her family's house on Pierpont Avenue in West Ashley. Someone kicked the front door about 1 a.m., and as Allison's father walked toward the noise, the intruder opened fire with a shotgun.

Several buckshot pellets traveled through the door, through a wall and into Allison's head as she slept in her bed in a room she shared with her two brothers. She died two days later at Medical University Hospital after brain scans did not show any activity.

Her killer remains at large.

William and Jennifer Griffor moved their family back to their home state of Michigan after the attack. Family friend Richard Douglas plans to deliver the presents collected Sunday in time for Christmas.

Douglas said he also will gather donations to add to an existing $1,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest in this case.

Sunday's benefit includes kids' games and free admission for children 10 years and younger.

The rock band Top Jimmy will headline the day; other performers scheduled are Hot Sauce, Sound Dogs, Trick Knee and Joe Cooke. Proceeds from raffles and a silent auction also will help the Griffor family.

---

Sheriff confident

The killer of 5-year-old Allison Griffor will be caught, Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon said this week.

Cannon vowed in October that the person who fired a shotgun through a West Ashley home's door early on Oct. 25, fatally wounding Griffor in her bed, will pay for the crime.

No arrest has been made, but Cannon said, "The investigation is proceeding as it should, and we are confident we are doing the things we need to do. We are confident will are narrowing the search" for a suspect.

Cannon was asked about the Griffor case during a press conference concerning an unrelated matter. He said that neither the investigation nor reward money offered for information in the Griffor case turned up the tip needed to identify the suspect.

Investigators have said the shooting may have been part of a home invasion robbery gone awry.

 

Allison Griffor

Rest In Peace Allison!

Allison Griffor

A suspected drug dealer will spend the night in jail after a judge sets his bond at half a million dollars.
Deputies are investigating a possible connection between this drug case and the shooting of a 5-year-old girl .

The man's family, though, said there's no way the cases are related.

Juan Carlos Grant's grandmother, Dorothy Grant, said that she thinks bond was set too high for a trafficking marijuana charge and doesn't believe grant would be involved in a shooting.

Grant was arrested yesterday afternoon at an apartment on Tedder Street in North Charleston.

Charleston County Deputies began searching for him yesterday morning, though, after the burglar alarm went off at a house he's renting on Catterton Drive in West Ashley.

When deputies showed up at the house, no one was there and the front door had been kicked in. They said they found 24 pounds of marijuana in the house and a handgun in the mailbox.

At bond court Tuesday night, a family friend said she believes Grant was "set up".

"He's an innocent victim. They can not pin charges on him. He's innocent. I know for a fact he's innocent. He had nothing to do with that shooting," Mary Singleton said.

Grant will go before a judge January 6th for the trafficking charge.

Deputies said they're not ruling out a possible connection between this case and a shooting that happened on Pierpont Avenue less than half a mile from Grant's Catterton Drive home and just half an hour before that burglar alarm went off.

In that case, deputies said a man heard loud banging on his door, and when he walked toward the door, shots were fired through it.

He was hit, but not seriously hurt.

Deputies said his 5 -year old daughter, though, was shot in the head and is still in critical condition.

Murderer:

*****

5-year-old Allison Griffor dies; family spokesman urges anyone with information to come forward

 

CHARLESTON — A spokesman for the Griffor family, standing in front of the 5-year-old shooting victim’s favorite fountain downtown, urged the public to help catch her killer, saying, “It could be you next.”

Richard Douglas, a former Charleston police officer, wore a dark suit as he read a statement from Allison Griffor’s parents, describing their little girl and explaining their tough decision to take her off life support and to donate her organs.

“Until these suspects are caught, we’re not safe,” Douglas said after reading the Griffors’ words at Waterfront Park.

Allison died Thursday after doctors at Medical University Hospital failed to find activity in her brain scans. Someone fired a shotgun through her family’s home on Pierpont Avenue in West Ashley early Tuesday morning, and several pellets lodged in the little girl’s head as she slept in her bed.
Here is the family’s entire statement:

“We are writing this to express our gratitude for all of the love and support for Allison at this time. We want to inform you that our precious little girl has left to be with the Lord.
We wanted to share a little of her light with you all. Allison was an amazing person with silly, fun, bubbly, loving life all around her. With a passion that seems to be unrivaled by any we have ever experienced.

She was a fierce, friend, whenever her friends fell down she would rush to their aid to make sure there OK. She was a leader and an artist. She would sit for periods and color with a seriousness of a doctor in surgery.

She was an awesome sister to her two brothers and always did everything with them. She would ride Lucas’ tricycle around the house playing tag with Aiden and Lucas.
I will forever see her quirky poses and smiles in my minds eye. Every time I came home from work each day I am always greeted with her huge smile and yelling “Daddy’s home” with excitement as she’s quickly followed by the boys.

          She would give these hugs that you felt in your soul. Just encompassing you in her full love.

We will always remember Allison for the beautiful person that she is, she has went to be with the Lord, but she will forever be the biggest part of all of us.

We are grateful for the five short years the lord has blessed us with. We look forward to being greeted with a hug when finally we are re-united.

Even through this great tragedy the Lord has revealed a positive action in that even as we believe she’s going to heaven she is still able to save lives through the gift of her love through donation.

We always knew she was destined for greatness, we were just picturing a different way. We don’t harbor any anger nor revenge regarding this tragedy. We will move forward in the Lord with patience and faith as we hold to our memories of our great blessing. Thank you for all your love and support.

The Griffor Family.”

Rest In Peace Allison, Rest In Peace.