Her son was murdered in Beaufort 6 years ago. She hopes sharing her story can save others
Every year on his birthday, Ver’mon Steve visited his mother with flowers in hand.
They were usually fresh, sometimes a bunch of roses, and as he handed them to her he’d say, “Thank you for letting me be born, Mother.”
Ver’mon — or “Monie” as those closest to him knew him — was the only one of Janice Steve’s four children who called her that formal name.
On Oct. 3, 2015, just like every other year, Ver’mon showed up at his parents’ house in Varnville to carry on the tradition. This time, though, he brought artificial chrysanthemums.
“We all jokingly asked him, ‘Monie, what are you doing with those funeral flowers?’” his mother said in a recent interview as she held the white, purple, pink and yellow flowers from more than six years ago.
Steve remembers him laughing and saying that’s all he could afford.
That memory is burned in her brain.
It was the last time Ver’mon bought her flowers, the last birthday they’d celebrate together. About three weeks later, on Oct. 25, he was shot to death in his home in Beaufort in one of the deadliest years Beaufort County had seen in decades.
Although police came to his neighborhood the night of the shooting because someone reported shots being fired, officers didn’t find anything. More than two months went by before they found Ver’mon’s skeletal remains in early January 2016 burned near Pea Patch Road on St. Helena Island.
The Steve family went through the holidays not knowing where Ver’mon was.
Steve says there were times she found it hard to breathe.
She went through a lot of soul searching, a lot of unanswered questions, and a lot of tears.
Also a lot of praying.
“That’s where I spent most of my time,” Janice said pointing to a floral patterned loveseat in her living room. “My position of comfort was on my knees at that chair.”
Five years later, Janice compiled moments like that for her book, “On My Knees #positionofcomfort.”
In her “little book,” as she calls it, she talks about Ver’mon, his death, and the journey to find both justice and God.
Janice said she knew nothing about writing a book, but had so many thoughts in her head and notes scribbled on tissue that she thought could help inspire others.
One of the main messages from “On My Knees,” Janice said, is for young people to “think twice before you pull the trigger because the other life you save will be your own.”
Ver’mon, 36, had had brushes with the law when he was younger, but at the time of his death he was mentoring youth in his neighborhood, telling them to stay out of trouble, his mother said.
He also had a job he really liked at a metal sign-making company where he used his wielding certification, and every Sunday he traveled between Beaufort and Yemassee to take his granddaddy to church.
Ver’mon was doing well, she said.
His bigheartedness is what eventually led to his death, his mom said, allowing someone he knew from childhood to stay in his home even though the man had just been released from federal prison.
Just before his murder, Ver’mon told the roommate, Varsheen “Twiz” Smith, that he could no longer stay with him, Steve said. Smith, she said, then orchestrated a plan to have Ver’mon killed.
In the three years after Ver’mon’s body was found, four men, all of whom knew him, were convicted in his death.
Tyrone Wallace, who told police that Smith made him kill Ver’mon, was found guilty of murder by a Beaufort County jury in 2018.
He was also found guilty of kidnapping Ver’mon’s friend shortly before the killing, as was Smith.
Meanwhile, Tayquan Lampkin and Domonique Cook pleaded guilty as accessories after the fact of murder.
Since the trials have ended, Steve has tried to use her family’s story to save others from gun violence. In addition to writing her book, she’s spent time in the the community. She said she hopes to speak in schools in the future.
A book signing with Steve is scheduled from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Gullah Geechee Visitor’s Center at 870 Sea Island Parkway on Lady’s Island. The book can also be purchased online at stores such as Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
