Vigil Held for Dara Watson

A crowd of 30 gathered in the Mount Pleasant Memorial Waterfront Park Friday night for what was supposed to be a hopeful vigil for Dara Watson, the woman reported missing a week earlier.

But hours before the vigil and flier distribution effort, Mount Pleasant Police announced they had recovered human remains near the area where Watson's burned-out SUV was found last week.

See an interactive map of key locations in the investigation.

The Charleston County Coroner has not officially declared the remains to be that of Watson, but authorities suspended their search efforts after the Friday discovery and the participants said the event felt more like a memorial than a vigil.

"I think for us, tonight [was a goodbye]," Stacie Barber, one of Watson's high school friends, told WCBD-TV. "I think we came here in a sense of remembrance of her, who she was and her spirit."

Watson's family had not seen the 30-year-old Mount Pleasant woman since Feb. 6. That's when Watson left her family's Boone, N.C., home with her fiance David Hedrick.

See a timeline of events in the case.

Police later discovered Watson's SUV in a remote road in the Francis Marion National Forest. Witnesses say they saw Hedrick exiting the woods with a shovel around the time of the fire. A motorist reported picking up Hedrick near the forest.

Hedrick reportedly committed suicide Feb. 10, hours after police questioned him in their formal missing-person investigation. Watson was reported missing by her employer earlier that day.

Her sister and boss reported getting text messages from Watson after Feb. 6, but police say they believe Hedrick was actually the author of those messages. The phone was recovered on Thursday in a pond near Hedrick's home in the upscale Rivertowne subdivision.

Friends told various media outlets that Hedrick was distraught in the days after their trip to Boone because Watson wanted to call off their wedding. The couple had been together since 2008 and were engaged in January.