In the early morning hours of August 4, 2018, the life of 38-year-old Rebecca Nicole Haenning was tragically cut short in her Greenville, South Carolina home. Deputies responded to a call of shots fired on Albain Circle at approximately 12:35 a.m. and discovered Haenning with a gunshot wound to her torso. She was immediately transported to Greenville Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead a short time later.
Initially, the circumstances surrounding her death were presented as a
suicide. Haenning's live-in boyfriend, Rockford Lewis, made a distraught 911 call, claiming that after an argument, Haenning had shot herself. In the recording, he could be heard pleading, 'Baby, please live.' However, as the investigation progressed, authorities began to question this version of events, leading to a significant turn in the case.
Three days after Rebecca's death, on August 7, 2018, Rockford Lewis was arrested and charged with murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. The man who had initially portrayed himself as a grieving partner was now the primary suspect in her death. Lewis remained in custody at the Greenville County Detention Center as the legal proceedings unfolded.
In a resolution to the case, on August 16, 2021, Rockford Lewis pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison for his role in the death of Rebecca Nicole Haenning. The case took another unusual turn when Lewis's mother, Reva Shealy, was arrested for threatening the prosecutor assigned to her son's case in a series of recorded phone calls from the jail.
