Police Still Looking For Woman Whose Fiance Was Found Dead Of Apparent Suicide

[Whisper]

Dara Watson

Dara Watson & David Hedrick

South Carolina police are searching for the fiance of a Mount Pleasant man who they suspect committed suicide Friday inside the couple's home. The missing woman's burned-out SUV has been found, but there's no sign of her whereabouts.

Dara Lee Watson, 30, was reported missing by her boss at Verge Solutions on Friday morning. Watson works in the company's accounting department. When police contacted Watson's fiancee, David Hedrick, 34, he said he and Watson had gotten into an argument, authorities said. He said she left Tuesday and hadn't returned. Hedrick said it was not unusual for Watson to take off after an argument, but he was concerned, police said.

At about 12:30 p.m., friends of Hedrick called police and reported finding him dead inside the home he shared with Watson. A 9 mm semi-automatic handgun was found near Hedrick's body.

The Charleston County Coroner has confirmed Hedrick, owner of a bail bond business, died from a single gunshot to the head. An official cause of death has not been released, but according to Patch, police reports indicate his death was likely suicide.

Authorities discovered Watson's burned-out 2006 GMC Envoy SUV abandoned in the Francis Marion Forest on Wednesday, two days before she was reported missing.

Over the weekend, the Charleston County Sheriff's Office searched a five-mile radius from the SUV. Nothing of interest was found, a sheriff's spokesman said.

Watson has not used her cellphone since Wednesday evening, police said in a statement. Phone records indicate the phone was using a tower near Venning Road in Mount Pleasant. A message was sent to her boss that night "stating she was fine," police said.




Watson's mother told police she last saw her daughter on Feb. 6, when she stopped for a visit at the family's business in Boone, N.C.

Mount Pleasant police said they are treating Watson's case as a missing person investigation, but haven't ruled out foul play.

Watson is described as a white female, 5 feet, 4 inches tall and 127 pounds. She has brown hair and blue eyes.
[...]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...html?ref=crime

[CbabyRKO]

I am a consummate optimist when it comes to missing persons cases. I hope they find her alive and okay although with the suicide of the boyfriend I'm thinking not.

[LeaveMeBe]

Another fucking coward who got it bass-ackwards.

She's dead. I hope they can locate her body so her family can have closure.

[Whisper]

Mt. Pleasant Police to hold press conference on missing woman

MT. PLEASANT, SC (WCSC) -
Law enforcement agencies returned to the Francis Marion National Forest on Tuesday to search an area off Halfway Creek Road for the third time since Dara Lee Watson was reported missing last week.
The Mt. Pleasant Police Department will hold a press conference at 4:30 p.m. to discuss the case. Earlier Tuesday, authorities set up an investigation scene near the intersection of Iron Swamp Road and Clayfield Road.

A tip received by Mt. Pleasant police led the Charleston County Sheriff's Office to that area. Deputies assessed an area near Clayfield Road to determine if the area may be related to the Watson missing persons case.

Deputies say a fresh dig hole that led investigators to the area appears to be from a tree that fell over and is probably not related to the Watson case. A forensic unit is on scene testing soil samples.

Deputies then moved to Halfway Creek Road to search the area near where Watson's SUV was found burned up last Tuesday. Crews are searching off Halfway Creek Road, about a half mile before Guerins Bridge.

Watson hasn't been seen since Feb. 6 and authorities have been searching for her since Friday. Two friends of Watson's fiance, 34-year-old David Hedrick, found him dead in the couple's North Creek Drive home in the Rivertown Subdivision on Friday afternoon. The Charleston County Coroner's Office says he died of a single gunshot wound to the head.

According to incident reports provided by the Mt. Pleasant Police Department, Hedrick was found dead just a few hours after police questioned him about Watson's disappearance. On Tuesday, police found Watson's SUV burned up in the woods.


One of Watson's coworkers filed a missing persons report with the Mt. Pleasant Police Department on Friday after Watson had not been heard from for two days. Watson was last seen on Monday in Boone, NC by her mother.

Multiple agencies searched a wooded area Saturday and Sunday off Halfway Creek Road after finding Watson's SUV. On Monday, police were back at the house where Hedrick's body was found to take another look at the crime scene.

[...]
He first told police that Watson's disappearance didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary because she had left and gone to stay with a friend for a couple of days on a few occasions, but later added that she had never been gone for "this period of time" and he was beginning to worry.

According to the incident report, Patrick O'Neil and Charles Gilbert arrived at Hedrick's North Creek Drive home on Feb. 11 and found Hedrick's body lying horizontally on the bed in the master bedroom. A police officer described a "pool of blood building around Hedrick's head." The report also states that Hedrick's friend located a 9 mm handgun in the master bedroom's bathroom.

O'Neil and Gilbert say they were making their way up the back steps of their good friend's house when they heard a single gunshot.

O'Neil says leading up to Friday, Hedrick wasn't himself. He said the 34 year old was quiet and withdrawn. The two friends say things got more serious Thursday when they found out Watson was missing and the Mt. Pleasant Police Department was looking for her.

The friends say Hedrick told them "They gotta do what they gotta do." That is what led the two friends to his front porch, knocking on the door.


According to the couple's wedding website, they just got engaged in January. Dozens of pictures of the couple are posted on Watson's Facebook page, including several from international trips the two took together.

http://www.wistv.com/story/16929896/...ng-mt-pleasant

[Bohring]

Another douchebag who can't hold his shit together.

Either that or the chick is in on it with the dude's best friend to collect an ass-ton of insurance money!

*thinks perhaps it's time to give up screenwriting*

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Dara Watson spent the last moments of her life in the Mount Pleasant home she shared with her former fiance, David Hedrick. That's where on Feb. 6 or 7 Hedrick shot her once in the head, killing her, police said Saturday.

Hedrick then stuffed the lifeless body of the 30-year-old woman, who reportedly had called off their wedding, into her sport utility vehicle and drove to an isolated spot in the Francis Marion National Forest, said Mount Pleasant Police Chief Harry Sewell.

Hedrick then pulled out a shovel, dug a shallow grave about 60 yards away, dumped her body into it and buried her. Then he set the vehicle ablaze and walked out of the woods. Passers-by reported seeing him come out of the woods carrying a shovel.

Speculation about a body found near the burned vehicle Friday was put to rest when Sewell and Charleston County Coroner Rae Wooten confirmed the body was Watson's.
[...]

The Watson case has not been straightforward. During the period when her whereabouts were unknown, since she left Boone, texts were made from her phone, her SUV was found burned and Hedrick was found dead in the couple's home.

Searchers found a body Friday, and Sewell said Saturday that dental records were used to identify it as Watson's. He said Hedrick shot her to death in a home the couple shared in Rivertowne, took her to the woods off Halfway Creek Road, buried her, then torched her vehicle.

Wooten said the cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head. There were no other signs of violence or trauma on her body. Her death has been ruled a homicide.

Sewell said the area where Watson's body was found previously had been searched. But heavy rain settled the ground and revealed new evidence. "We weren't giving up on that area," he said.
[...]

Hedrick, 34, fatally shot himself in the head Feb. 10 in the North Creek Drive home the couple shared after being questioned by police about Watson's disappearance.

Sewell said there was evidence Hedrick was planning to leave town after having shot Watson. A resignation letter was found on his computer, for example.

Hedrick had been employed at Palmetto Surety Corp. since 2005, when he worked in sales and marketing. He was named the Daniel Island company's president and CEO in 2008.

Hedrick continued a ruse of Watson being alive in the days after he killed her by sending text messages from her cellphone, Sewell said. Her cellphone was found by divers Thursday in a pond near the couple's home.

The pistol Hedrick used in his suicide is being analyzed for a ballistic comparison to Watson's fatal injury, Sewell said.
[...]

http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/02/...killed-at.html

[Morbid]

Mount Pleasant, SC – Police are still searching for the South Carolina woman who was reported missing hours before her fiancee was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Dara Lee Watson was last seen alive by her mother on February 6 when when she stopped for a visit with her fiancé, David Hedrick, at the family’s business in Boone, N.C. According to Hedricks’ statements to police, he and Watson got into a fight later that same evening and that she had left the couple’s home the next day. he says that she has done this before after an argument but he is worried about her. On February 8, Watson’s boss says he received a text message from Watson stating that she was fine. Watson’s sister would also receive a text message from Watson’s phone a few hours later. That same day, Watson’s burned out SUV would be found in Francis Marion National Forest, but the police there don’t connect it to the missing person case. On February 10, Watson’s boss called police to report her missing. It’s when police called the couple’s home that morning that*Hedrick informed them of the argument and of Watson leaving the home. A few hours after police made contact with Hedrick, they would receive a phone call from his friends who report that they have found him dead inside his home. They say they were trying to get into the home when they heard a gunshot. When they made entry, they found*Hedrick on his bed dead from a gunshot wound to the head. It’s not official, but police reports say the wound was self-inflicted. On February 11 and 12, police search the area around where Watson’s SUV had been found, but call off the search when they are unable to find any evidence of her whereabouts. This morning police were in northern Charleston County after receiving a tip of some disturbed ground, but that search resulted in no new information. According to sheriff’s spokesman Major Jim Brady,*deputies are meeting with Mount Pleasant police today to search the original area of interest where Watson’s vehicle was found. They have*also*handed out fresh fliers asking for the public’s help in locating Watson.
This article is from The Dreamin' Demon, the Internet's self-appointed buzzkill.


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