Bishopville, SC (WLTX) - Family members are speaking out after their loved ones were murdered at Lee Correctional Institution Sunday night.
Seven inmates were killed and seventeen others were injured at the maximum security prison after fights broke out in three different dorms.
Amanda Evans is at a loss for words. Her boyfriend Eddie Gaskins is among those killed at Lee Correctional Institution.
“To know Eddie is to know life," said Evans. "It feels like everything else is gone and he was always the one to make it better.”
Evans says just a few weeks ago, she and Gaskins made their relationship official. Little did she know Sunday night would be the last time she would talk to him.
“I asked him what was going on and he told me that they were on lockdown last week. He told me that things were still really bad and that he had to get out of there," she said. "He was just trying to do right so he could get home.”
While officials say the confrontation inside the facility was about territory, contraband, and cell phones, Evans says it’s unfair her boyfriend had to die.
Evans and her mother, Melissa Hodge, says something needs to be done to prevent things like this from happening in the corrections system.
“These inmates do not need to be treated like dogs and animals regardless of what they do. They are somebody’s child," said Hodge. "They are somebody’s family member or somebody’s father or somebody’s son or daughters or mothers. I feel like we they go to prison, they’re there to pay for what they’ve done."
Hodge says that she thinks the way inmates have been treated let to what happened on Sunday night.
"Innocent people are getting caught up into gangs that are going on there and contraband and stuff that they have nothing to do with. It’s not going to stop until the Governor and the state and the laws change,” explained Hodge.
Evans says that people need to realize inmates have families too.
“Knowing that somebody else’s family is gone and that some child is never going to see them again, it’s crazy. I’d tell him that I love him and I’m sorry,” said Evans.
Evans and her family says they are planning on writing South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster to hopefully create a change in the system. They also would like to offer their thoughts and prayers for everyone suffering from the incident.