Melva Lowman, 79, of 206 Sills Drive, died at Rowan Regional Medical Center.

Her granddaughter, Melanie Carol Henderson, is in the Rowan County Detention Center in lieu of $300,000 bond.

Henderson is charged with felony robbery with a dangerous weapon and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill.

Police say they’ll likely ask that those charges be increased now.

Lowman’s neighbors say they are shocked by what happened Sunday night on a peaceful street of red brick houses and well-clipped lawns.

The steady ringing of the doorbell Monday morning awoke Elza Loflin, Lowman’s next-door neighbor.

When she opened the front door of her home on Sills Drive, Loflin found Lowman slumped on a bench.

“She said, ‘I have been beaten up,’ ” Loflin said. “She looked so frail, so pitiful.”

Loflin brought Lowman inside, bruised and bloodied, gave her a cup of coffee and called her daughter and son-in-law, Carol and Don Steelman.

Don called 911, she said.

As they waited for the Steelmans, Loflin said, Lowman told her this account of what happened the night before:

Henderson, Lowman’s granddaughter, had come to Lowman’s house asking for $40.

Lowman told Henderson she didn’t have the money, but the younger woman insisted, so she gave her the $40.

Henderson left, but returned around 9:45 p.m. and demanded more.

When Lowman told her she didn’t have it, Henderson became enraged.

She beat Lowman — police say with a ceramic object — put a pillow over her face and screamed that she was going to kill her.

Henderson eventually left — Loflin thinks Lowman pretended she was dead — but tore out all the telephones.

Lowman got a spare telephone and tried the line, but it didn’t work.

She wanted to leave the house to get help but was afraid.

“She said she wanted to come, but she was scared they would be out there and finish her up,”Loflin said. “So she stayed in there all night long.”

During the night, Lowman told Loflin, she got a flashlight and signalled SOS — a Morse Code call for help — out a window facing Loflin’s house.

But Loflin and her daughter had gone to bed early.

“We did not catch the rays of the flashlight,”Loflin said. “I wish we had.”

Loflin said she’s deeply saddened, because she and Lowman had always watched out for one another.

Howard and Melva Lowman moved into the neighborhood about 20 years ago. The Loflins moved to Sills Drive in 1967.

Both their husbands had worked for Southern Railway and were good friends. Howard Lowman died last year.

“Often times, she worried because she was all alone in that house,”Loflin said. “But it appeared that she was fine.”

Don and Carol Steelman often came to the house to visit Lowman, Loflin said. They were “both beside themselves”when they learned what their daughter is accused of, she said.

Don Steelman said this morning the family tragedy has mired the entire family in grief.

“My family is grieving so bad. We all loved her so much,”he said. “It’s real tragic it happened, and we are grieving so much.”

Other Sills Drive residents, even ones who say they didn’t know her well, call Lowman a good neighbor.

“She was a nice lady, wouldn’t hurt no one,”said Ed Stone. “If you needed help, she’d help.”

Stone, who has lived here 35 years, recalled seeing Lowman for the last time Sunday as she went to church. She was a member of Oakland Heights Baptist Church.

Salisbury Post clippings indicate Henderson has previously been charged with car theft, possession of drug paraphernalia and forgery.

But this, says Loflin, is unbelievable.