Cuddling up against her mother, just like she used to do when she was a baby, Brittany Davis told her she smelled good. Those words, spoken on the night of Thanksgiving 2019, would be the last her mother would ever hear from Davis in person.
Melanie Holliman knew something was wrong when her daughter posted on Facebook four months later that she was in Puerto Rico and didn’t tell her about it. Her motherly instinct was confirmed last month when a skull found in Gwinnett County was identified as Davis — an agonizing 17 months after she was reported missing.
“When you become a mother and you are as close as me and my kids are, you know when something ain’t right and you just about know who is to be blamed,” Holliman said.
Michael Wilkerson, 42, of Greenville, South Carolina, was taken into custody Aug. 24 in Lawrenceville and has been extradited to his hometown, Gwinnett police said this week. He is accused of killing Davis, his 32-year-old fiancé, who was living in Greenville with him at the time of her disappearance.
Greenville police suspect she died Feb. 12, 2020, but the cause of death has not been determined.
“It’s hard, I’m surprised I haven’t broken down yet. It’s a minute-to-minute thing. One minute I’m OK, then the next two to three days, I may not be OK,” Holliman said.
Credit: Greenville County Police Department
Credit: Greenville County Police Department
The case in Gwinnett began in April of this year when police discovered a human skull in the woods in Buford. The county medical examiner determined it belonged to a woman between the ages of 20 and 35 years old. More than 200 miles away in Charlotte, North Carolina, Holliman had no clue developments on her missing daughter’s case had been made.
Holliman reported her daughter missing in March 2020 after receiving multiple texts and calls from Davis’ phone after finding out in a Facebook post that she was supposedly in Puerto Rico. And though Davis had been there before with Wilkerson, Holliman immediately knew something was wrong.
“It threw me for a loop because we always made sure we knew what was going on and we didn’t find out about anything on Facebook,” Holliman emphasized in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Despite the numerous calls and texts Holliman received from Davis’ phone while she was thought to be in Puerto Rico, the two never actually spoke and the various texts did not seem like they were from her daughter. In one, it said she had broken up with Wilkerson and went to the island to clear her head, Holliman added.
A few days later, Holliman received another text from Davis’ phone saying she would be home the next day. A photo of a boarding pass was also sent. Then, everything went silent.
“She was in contact with people while in Puerto Rico in March, but (police) suspected that Brittany was killed (Feb. 12),” Holliman said with a trembling voice. “She didn’t go to Puerto Rico.”
Credit: Family Photo
Credit: Family Photo
Vividly recounting the day she strode to her local police department in March 2020, Holliman hoped to report Davis missing but said she was told she would have to contact police in Puerto Rico instead.
While continuing their search, Holliman and Davis’ father, Curtis Hill, were told that the skull found in Gwinnett was Davis’ on Aug. 20, 2021. The site is about 100 miles from where Davis grew up in Macon. Police called Holliman’s uncle, and he broke the news to her.
“I never would have suspected that I was getting that information that night,” Holliman said while pausing between each word. “He just said, ‘They found your baby.’ I don’t receive bad news too good, I pass out.”
Hill, who lives in Macon, was on his way out of town when Holliman called him and told him to go back home because police needed to talk to him. The news was “devastating” for Hill, who had been mourning the recent deaths of his parents due to COVID-19.
Police tied Wilkerson to the case and arrested him in Lawrenceville four days later.
He and Davis met around 2015 after he hired her for a food service job in Washington, D.C., Holliman said. He was married with three kids at the time, all of whom lived at a home in Lawrenceville, Holliman was told by Davis. Holliman said Wilkerson eventually separated from his wife and had divorce plans, and that’s when Davis began seeing him around 2017.
They got engaged in early 2019 and were living together in Greenville when Davis went missing. Holliman said she never had a negative experience with Wilkerson.
“He was very charismatic and just wanting to make sure Brittany was good,” Holliman said about the first time she met him.
Credit: Family Photo
Credit: Family Photo
Hill said he had a different experience when he met Wilkerson, though. He said he immediately didn’t approve of the couple.
“It’s just the fact that when you meet someone, you’re supposed to at least greet them or shake their hand,” Hill said. “(Wilkerson) having been a father, he could have at least done that, but he didn’t, he just stood there.”
The recent positive match of Davis’ remains and the arrest has not brought closure to Hill or Holliman as they are continuously brought back to the final moment they saw her during that Thanksgiving holiday in 2019.
Hill saw his daughter for the last time right before she went to visit her mother in North Carolina.
“She came to my house and tried to introduce me to (Wilkerson) and I wasn’t feeling it, but she is my child, so whatever would make her happy was my thought at the time,” he said.
With a cheer in her voice, Holliman recounted the final moments she held her daughter, much like she did when Davis was a baby. She would snuggle up against Holliman and rub her nose against her neck. As she grew up, Davis would embrace her mother, sniff her and compliment her smell.
“(Thanksgiving) night she came and she sniffed me and I said, ‘You always sniff me like a little puppy,’ and she said, ‘Cause mommy, you smell good,’” Holliman said through giggles. “And she did me like that, that night.”
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