The names of 40 people who lost their lives to domestic violence in 2025 were read at this year's Silent Witness Ceremony on Oct. 6, led by South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson. As Wilson read the names, cardboard silhouettes of red and blue, representing the 30 women and 10 men, filled the south-side steps of the statehouse. A bell rang in remembrance of each victim.
Various officials called domestic violence a public health and safety concern to South Carolinians. According to the Violence Policy Center, South Carolina ranked in the top 10 states nationally for the rate of women killed by men every year from 1996 to 2020, except for 2018 (11th) and 2020 (23rd). Changes to the FBI's crime reporting system have affected the center's ability to publish annual state rankings.
The National Network to End Domestic Violence analyzed domestic violence programs, nationally, over a 24-hour period in 2025. Data released from its 20th Annual Domestic Violence Counts Report showed South Carolina received approximately five contacts per hour and served 626 victims.
"Those numbers reflect both the need for help and the essential work of advocates providing safety, support, and resources," Wilson says. The ceremony, he says, emphasizes the importance of supporting survivors at every stage.
Sierra Locklear, a survivor of domestic violence, was a speaker at the ceremony. Locklear says she was in an abusive relationship with someone who introduced her to meth. The combination of domestic violence and addiction changed her life. Locklear says she lost her sense of self, parental rights, and at one point lived in an abandoned storage building. She says the support she was offered forged a path to healing.
"I made the decision to go into rehabilitation. I spent 28 days in rehab. But, completing rehab didn't mean everything was suddenly fixed," she says. "I still needed somewhere safe to go. I needed stability."
Locklear says New Beginnings Transitional Shelter
in Marlboro County helped her find housing and obtain an order of protection.
She stayed at the shelter for one year and seven months. During that time, Locklear obtained a driver’s license, a car, and insurance. She eventually found full-time employment and permanent housing and regained her parental rights.
"Leaving is just only the beginning," she says. "A survivor may need shelter. She may need legal advocacy and an order of protection. She may need treatment for addiction. She may need education or employment opportunities. And sometimes, she may need someone to remind her [that] she is still worth fighting for until she is strong enough to believe it for herself."
The version of Locklear that was at the podium—sober, housed, and a working mom—is "what can happen when those resources are available," she says.
"I'd [like] to see an increased emphasis on prevention because, while we are working hard to combat [domestic violence]," says Monique Garvin, director of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Programs and the State Human Trafficking Task Force at the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office. "I really want to make sure that we're able to prevent [it] from happening in the first place."
She says preventing domestic violence comes down to safety resources and education, delivered through facilitation, videos, and modules. However, Garvin emphasizes the need for "an increased accountability" to make sure domestic violence education is required and implemented in classrooms across the state.
This also applies to human trafficking. Garvin says that in her line of work, many forms of violence often co-occur.
"Victims who are experiencing domestic violence could also be trafficking victims," she says.
She says education, awareness, and resources are needed to address these overlapping forms of violence together, and that her aim is to “ensure that we are removing the siloed attempts at combating violence in our communities.”
Survivors say the need for support extends beyond those directly impacted by domestic violence to those who were indirectly impacted.
"I felt stuck in it because I was worried about my family," says Jamie Banks, a survivor of domestic violence who has supported the Silent Witness Ceremony for the past 12 years. "Victims, they might have the physical impact of it, [but] my parents, they have PTSD from it."
"Seventy-three percent of the women and men represented in today's ceremony were the mothers and fathers of children whose homes will never be the same," Wilson said at the ceremony. According to Wilson, children who witness domestic violence are more susceptible to experiencing abuse in their romantic relationships as a teenager, more likely to perpetrate or become victim to domestic violence in adulthood, and are more likely to experience chronic health conditions.
For Darlene Stinson, those children aren't a statistic. Stinson lost her 43-year-old daughter, Darlisha McIlwain, to domestic violence. McIlwain lived in Moncks Corner and worked in the medical field. She was also a mother of two and a grandmother.
“I am left to take care of them, and I’m going to do it. If she [could] tell me, [she’d] say, mama, you better do it,” Stinson says. “So, mama is doing it ... I’m going to live to care of your three loved ones that you left behind.”
To those experiencing domestic violence, Stinson says to reach out to someone.
"If you [have] problems, don't hold it in. If you have to go talk to a pastor, the officer, your family," she says. "Because me, [I] didn't know my daughter was living through the domestic violence. So, I would love to see more people that's going through it, please reach out."
The South Carolina Department of Social Services provides a list of domestic violence organizations and programs for those in need of help with domestic violence. You can find the list here.
