She was ‘Loyal Linda:’ Family remembers Beaufort-raised teacher killed by car fleeing ICE
The early March sun streamed into Linda Davis’ kitchen, but the house in Savannah’s suburbs was quiet and still.
At the table where Linda Davis once led family prayers before dinner, her wife, Consweulo Davis, and older sister, Andrea Chang, sat remembering the woman whose laugh used to fill the room.
On Feb. 16, Linda Davis’ life was cut short during her morning commute to the Savannah school where she taught kindergarteners with special needs. Local and federal authorities say a Guatemalan man, Oscar Vasquez Lopez, crashed his truck into Linda’s car as he was fleeing a traffic stop by immigration officers.
He has since been charged by the Chatham County Police Department with first-degree homicide by vehicle, reckless driving, driving without valid license and failure to obey traffic control devices.
Questions have since been raised about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s pursuit policies, and how they compare to the rules of local police. An ICE agency spokesperson did not respond to The Island Packet’s questions about whether the pursuit or agents involved were under review. Politicians on both sides of the aisle made statements following Linda’s death condemning the lack of immigration enforcement, or the excess of it.
Linda’s grieving family, including her parents and three sisters, her wife of nearly four years, several adult children in their 20s and a 7-year-old under their guardianship, have not yet publicly discussed the circumstances of Linda’s death nor their plans to seek answers.
Instead, they have focused on planning memorials in her honor and sharing the story of her life.
Side by side, two of the women closest to her spoke about the brave, unashamed, creative and loyal woman Linda Davis was. Her story started when she first arrived in Beaufort, long before her life in Savannah.
A child of Beaufort
Linda’s parents, James Murray Jr. and Dianne Murray, moved to Beaufort around 1978. With them came their four young girls — Andrea, Linda, Shawna and Felicia. They previously lived in Chicago, then near Columbia.
If you wanted to understand the institutions at the heart of Beaufort, you could start with the Murray six.
The young family first lived at the Penn Center, spending a year renting out the Gantt Cottage, a place that, even on a campus as historic as Penn, had its own remarkable story. Just a decade earlier, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stayed in the cottage several times while planning and drafting speeches, including parts of his “I Have a Dream” speech.
.JPG "Penn Center (5).JPG")
The family then moved to a house near Laurel Bay, a community dedicated to local military families. Linda’s childhood was largely spent at that house on Bay Pines Road before her parents separated. Modest in size, the home was never short on people: extra kids their parents had taken in, neighbors seeking refuge from floodwaters, people without anywhere else to stay.
Linda’s father was the pastor at Beaufort Bible Chapel at West and Greene Streets. As pastor’s daughters, the Murray girls lent their voices and hands to the church’s music. Linda, the soprano, clung to her older sister at the front of the church singing hymns like, “what have I to dread, what have I to fear, leaning on the everlasting arms?”
Linda’s mother worked as a nurse at Battery Creek High School for nearly 35 years. In the summer heat, she cared for inmates at the local jail and migrant workers who tended to the fields, drawn to the people others often overlooked.
Even from a young age, Andrea described her sister as “loyal Linda.”
“You could tell her anything, and it would be her secret to keep,” Andrea said. “She cherished them.”
Like most children of Beaufort, Linda spent much of her time outside. She climbed moss-covered trees that surrounded their home. She watched boats go by at Waterfront Park. She walked Fripp Island and Hilton Head Island beaches with a mystery book in her hand.
Linda’s teenage years in Beaufort were busy, and she liked it that way.
At nearly six-feet tall, she dominated the volleyball court at Battery Creek High School, and was known for surprising the opponent by switching hands mid-play. The Murray girls were all left-handed, but Linda was somewhat ambidextrous. She played clarinet, participated in the marching band and was member of the color guard. She also played the lead in church plays.
In the classroom, Linda was known to be quiet and observant. She was “sort of nerdy,” Andrea said, often reading more than what was assigned by her teachers. She valued her education, earning bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees.
Still, Linda never really imagined herself as an educator, her sister, Andrea said. Instead, it sort of “fell in her lap,” and she quickly realized she was meant to teach. Linda started at Lady’s Island Elementary, later teaching at Robert Smalls Leadership Academy and Brock Elementary School in Savannah.
‘There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t tell her that I love her’
Linda made it known to those closest to her that she was the happiest she’d ever been in recent years.
“I ain’t mad at nobody,” Andrea recalled her sister saying in a recent phone call. “I’m living my best life.”
She had recently taken a new job at Hesse K-8 School in Savannah, first as a substitute, then as a lead teacher. Under Linda’s leadership, Consweulo said, the class’ entire dynamic changed. She was uniquely qualified to nurture, and took pride in her class’ progress.
“It was natural for her. That nurturing part of her that wanted to nurture everybody and give everybody what they need,” Consweulo said.
To the kids, Linda was “a gentle giant,” Consweulo said, quick to distribute Skittles and suckers for good work and happy to let them touch her fuzzy boots if they stayed quiet. She often laughed telling stories of kids trying to “be Ms. Davis,” sneaking sips from her colorful water bottle or insisting on wearing her backpack instead of their own.
And Linda had Consweulo.
The couple met more than a decade ago, but reconnected in 2021. They were set to celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary in April. Together, they had a blended family of seven children.
“I wanted her to be happy because of the way she loved me,” Consweulo said. “Because I knew she loved me, I knew that she was loyal, I knew that she was genuine. I wanted to give her anything she wanted. And I tried. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t tell her that I love her.”
When asked how she would like people to remember her wife, Consweulo chose two words: unconditional love.
“I want them to know that people can pull aside their differences and focus on their similarities,” said Consweulo. “And if we did that, we could create a world of peace.”
