Ga. Man Charged with Murdering Fiancée, Whose Family Received Texts from Her Phone After Death

Michael Lee Wilkerson, 42, is accused of killing Brittany Michelle Davis, who went missing in early 2020 and was discovered dead more than a year later

Photo: Greenville Police Department

A Georgia man is accused of murdering his fiancée, who was reported missing in March 2020 and was discovered dead in April 2021.

Michael Lee Wilkerson, 42, was arrested in Buford, Ga., on Aug. 24 after evidence allegedly linked him to the death of Brittany Michelle Davis, the Greenville Police Department said in a statement. Wilkerson was living with Davis in Greenville, S.C., at the time of her disappearance.

Family members of Davis, then 32 years old, contacted Greenville police on March 16, 2020, to report her missing, the statement says. In April, more than a year later, Davis' remains were located in a wooded area of northeast Georgia.

Davis' cause of death has not yet been determined, police say, but authorities believe she died around February 12, 2020 — a month before she was reported missing.

Gwinnett County Jail

In July 2020, Davis' mother, Melanie Holliman, told FOX Carolina that she received messages from her daughter's phone through the month of February and into March. The final message that Holliman received allegedly said that Davis was going on a trip to Puerto Rico, which she later learned didn't happen.

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"Brittany was a shining light and for her to die like this it's just heartbreaking," her former coworker, Brian Paiz, told WSPA. "People pass away of cancer or they pass away in a car wreck or something like that. You can kind of know what it was. But to not know where she was and how she passed away, I think that was the biggest thing that really just hurt everybody."

Wilkerson was extradited to Greenville following his arrest and is being held in the Greenville County Detention Center, online jail records show. It is unclear if he has entered a plea to the charges against him or retained an attorney who can speak on his behalf.