He died saving a woman’s life. It was the ‘perfect ending’ to his own

Friday marked the 16th anniversary of the death of Horry County Sheriff’s deputy Lt. Randy Gerald.

He was a shift supervisor at the J. Reuben Long Detention Center and was returning home around 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 29, 2001, when he saw what he thought was an accident on S.C. Highway 701, according to Sheriff Phillip Thompson.

It wasn’t a wreck.

Thompson said what Gerald encountered was a domestic situation between a man and woman. The man saw Gerald’s uniform, walked over to his car, shot him and killed him, Thompson said. The woman managed to escape.

Gerald was 47 years old.

The killer, Boyd Meekins, is serving a life sentence for the crime.

“There’s no doubt in our mind that the result of his actions saved her life,” Thompson said during a memorial service held for Gerald at his burial site in Loris.

Randy’s wife, Gwendolyn Gerald, described him as a “gentle giant” who wanted to help everybody.

“When he passed we got as many cards, believe it or not, from inmates as we did everybody else worldwide,” Gerald said. “And all of them said ‘He made us feel human, and we’re sorry for your loss.’ That was really so surprising to me, not that he would treat them like humans, but that it made such an impact on them that they felt the need to reach out to us.”

Randy also left behind two daughters.

“It was a hard thing to get used to,” Gerald said. “For the longest, I still waited to see him come in the door, and after a while you realize, okay, you know, he’s not. Twenty-four years of having this person, my high school sweetheart, and now suddenly you’re without, so trying to find that new normal … was difficult.”

Thompson said that Gerald was a good supervisor who cared about his coworkers, and that he had a “calming effect” on those around him.

“New employees that come to work here, we tell them who Randy Gerald was, and what he was, what he stood for and what he did,” Thompson said. “We have a lot of thoughts and a lot of memories of Gerald. It’s just a shame it ended so soon.”

Gwendolyn Gerald said Randy lived to help people and died the way he would have wanted to: helping someone.

“I used to call him Mr. Helpful,” she said. “I think if he had to go, that was the way he would want to go. And I think it was a perfect ending to his life because that’s what he lived and that was who he was.

“A friend of mine said to me ‘He was here to do this work, this was what he was born for, and now it was over.’ And I got comfort for that. I know we’re all here for a season and reason. We knew his reason, and his season was up.”

This story was originally published December 29, 2017 at 4:11 PM with the headline "He died saving a woman’s life. It was the ‘perfect ending’ to his own."