Odd closure to a tragic event: Dead HHI man’s estate settles with heirs of slain partner

In an odd end to a tragic tale that captured the attention of Beaufort County residents at the end of 2022, representatives of Michael Wilson’s estate agreed to pay $175,000 to the beneficiaries of Brenda Carman, according to final settlement documents filed in Beaufort County civil court on May 2. That payment constitutes Carman’s 25% share of the couple’s home in the Indigo Run gated community.

Police determined Carman was murdered after finding her remains in a Bluffton nature preserve, ending a months-long search for the woman. Wilson died by suicide days after investigators announced the remains were Carman’s, prompting investigators to name him as the sole suspect in her killing.

Although the civil settlement does not determine guilt or innocence, the agreement marked the conclusion of a wrongful death lawsuit filed in February 2023, in which Carman’s family alleged Wilson murdered the woman “by unknown or undisclosed means” around Aug. 9, 2022. He then disposed of her body at the Victoria Bluff Heritage Preserve in mainland Bluffton, the suit claims.

Attorneys for Wilson’s estate denied he killed Carman, attributing her death to an unnamed suspect while asking in May 2023 for the case to be dismissed. Mediation efforts began that December and an initial settlement was agreed upon in late February, according to court filings.

Carman and Wilson never married but had been together for over 20 years prior to her death. They co-owned their house in Indigo Run and both worked in the deli section at Hilton Head’s south-end Publix.

Timeline of Brenda Carman’s disappearance

The 61-year-old woman was last seen on Aug. 9, 2022 by her attorney, who was helping her with the process of separating from Wilson. Local law enforcement began disseminating her photo and vehicle information later that month after family said she had been uncharacteristically quiet in a group text. Wilson never reported Carman as missing.

Early the next month, police found Carman’s car with minor front-end damage parked at the Walmart off Hilton Head’s Pembroke Drive. Investigators located her skeletal remains in the 977-acre Victoria Bluff Heritage Preserve in mid-November 2022, confirming they belonged to Carman two days later through an analysis of dental records.

Carman’s body had been at the preserve since at least Aug. 10, investigators later concluded. Staff at the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office were not able to determine a cause of death due to the highly decomposed state of her remains.

Wilson died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the couple’s home on Dec. 1, 2022, two days after the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office publicly announced the remains belonged to Carman and declared her death a homicide. He was named as the sole suspect in his partner’s murder following his death.

Police said they had been working toward Wilson’s arrest, but he had not been charged or publicly named as a suspect at the time of his suicide.

Audio recordings of the couple obtained by The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette in late 2022 revealed domestic issues between the two that allegedly turned violent. “I can’t go with you beating my head on the floor, can’t go with you spitting in my face; I can’t do it, I can’t,” Carman was heard saying during a dispute with Wilson over her text messages with a friend. Wilson claimed the other person was “coming between” them.

Public debt collection documents show Carman owed at least $24,000 to various credit card companies around the time of her disappearance. A letter to Wilson from Carman’s attorney in July 2022 shows the two had already begun the process of separating their assets, including their home in Indigo Run.

Friends and family said they’d remember Carman for her eccentric personality and side-splitting sense of humor. “Your energy was something I wish everyone had a chance to be around,” her niece Anna Carman wrote in an online tribute. “You lived life so simply. I always admired that about you.”

Following the death of the sole suspect in her murder, many of Carman’s loved ones were forced to accept they might never have all the answers.

“I didn’t know Mike all that well,” Doug Carman, Brenda’s brother, told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette in late 2022. “What the story is, I don’t know. It’s hard to believe someone would kill somebody over their share of the house.”