‘You couldn’t meet anyone more fun’: Friends, family remember murdered Hilton Head woman

Despite knowing what became of their sister, the family of Brenda Carman say they do not have all the answers and probably never will.

It’s been four months since the 61-year-old Hilton Head woman went missing, and nearly a month after her long-time partner, Michael Wilson, whom police suspect was responsible for her death, died by suicide.

“I didn’t know Mike all that well,” Brenda’s brother, Doug Carman, said. “What the story is, I don’t know. It’s hard to believe someone would kill somebody over their share of the house.”

Brenda Carman was reported missing by her brother after her best friend of 40 years, Rachel Little, called to tell him she thought something was wrong.

“It breaks my heart,” Little said. “I still find myself picking up the phone to call her.”

When he got the call, Doug Carman already had concerns because his sister had been uncharacteristically quiet in a group chat the siblings created to keep tabs on their elderly mother.

“We always said good morning or good night, or it’s freezing here,” Doug Carman said of the group chat. “It became a family habit.”

Who was she? The Brenda Carman everyone knew was likable and fun to be with, friends and family said.

Brenda and Doug Carman, who grew up in the ‘70s with just over a year’s age gap between them, spent most of their time helping their parents and two other sisters run the family hotel in Bennettsville, South Carolina. Brenda Carman worked in the kitchen as a waitress while Doug Carman did maintenance jobs and helped out around the front desk to greet guests. Brenda Carman was someone who enjoyed fishing and college football, her brother said.

“School was not big for her, she was more interested in enjoying life,” Carman said of his older sister. “She marched to her own beat.”

Eventually, Brenda Carman did go back to school and earned a degree in nursing. She worked as a nurse both in West Virginia and in Beaufort County before going to work at Publix on Hilton Head, her brother said.

It was there, according to a friend and coworker of five years, Susan McDonell, that she forged a community.

“She was feisty, but she was a cool chick,” McDonell said. “We had jobs to do, but I would follow her around [the store]. She made work fun, she always did.”

Throughout their 40 years of friendship, Little and Carman made hundreds of memories, though she’ll keep the “best times” to herself.

“We were young back then,” she said. “Young and dumb, so you can get away with it. You couldn’t meet anyone more fun than Brenda.”

‘Like a gut punch’

Carman worked in the deli section of the south-end Publix on Hilton Head, where she lived with Wilson in a house the two co-owned in Indigo Run, a gated community on the island. Wilson also worked at Publix as a butcher, McDonell said. The two had been together for over 20 years.

Brenda Carman was last seen on Aug. 9 by her attorney, who was helping her with the process of separating from Wilson. In the aftermath of her disappearance, Wilson never reported her missing, according to Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Maj. Angela Viens.

Her car was found a month later at a Hilton Head Walmart.

On Nov. 14, police found skeletal remains later identified as belonging to Carman. Police were able to discern that Carman’s body had been at the preserve since at least Aug. 10, according to previous reporting by the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.

Carman’s manner of death has been ruled as a homicide, but the state her body was in when police found her has prevented the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office from determining how she was killed, Coroner David Ott and the county’s forensic pathologist, Dr. Joni Skipper, said last week.

Recordings of the couple obtained by the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette show their difficult relationship. In the recordings, the two argued over who had instigated an argument that Carman alleged led to her being thrown to the floor hard enough to leave bruises.

On Dec. 1, Wilson died by suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities. Though he was never formally charged, police had been working toward his arrest after ruling out other possible suspects, Viens said. No note or confession was found at the house where Wilson died.

The day Brenda Carman disappeared, she had visited with an attorney to begin proceedings of how to split up the house and other assets.

Hearing the news of Wilson’s death was “like a gut punch” for Doug Carman, who said he wished he had the chance to get justice for his sister in court.

Amid the pain and devastation of the last few months, Doug Carman said he remembers most fondly a time on the school bus where he almost tussled with a classmate. There to break up the fight, and tell both boys to cut it out, was Brenda.

“She was always there; she’d look out for me,” he laughed. “I still remember that to this day.”

In an online tribute, Doug Carman’s daughter, Anna Carman, described her aunt as someone with a sharp wit who had a “contagious smile.” Her aunt’s stories, she said, could almost make people cry from laughter.

“Your energy was something I wish everyone had a chance to be around,” Anna Carman said. “You lived life so simply, I always admired that about you.”

Celebration of Life services for Brenda Carman have been scheduled for 10 a.m. Feb. 18 at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, 1201 Cherokee Road, in Florence, South Carolina.