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HOLLY HILL, S.C. – (WIS) As the family of an Orangeburg County woman, who went missing four months ago, seeks answers, the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office is releasing new information about the case.

The Sheriff’s Office said Friday in a statement that it put out a public call for leads this week after an “unconfirmed report of a possible sighting.”

Melissa Aguilar of Holly Hill was reported missing by an ex-boyfriend on August 18, a Sheriff’s Office report states.

Investigators believe she left a home Fourwind Road, which is an unincorporated area of Orangeburg County, after an argument with her ex.

Aguilar’s youngest daughter Shanna Brown told WIS in a Friday interview that the last four months have been excruciatingly painful.

Brown said she used to speak with her mother every day, and the fear of the unknown has caused her so much “anger, heartache, and worry.”

“It’s been really hard trying to juggle a job and put on a smile and act like nothing’s wrong when there’s so much wrong,” she said.

Brown described her last conversation with her mother on August 17, the night before she was reported missing.

During that phone call, Aguilar sounded upbeat and happy, Brown said.

Aguilar was excited about her oldest daughter’s upcoming wedding in September, and the pair discussed Brown’s future wedding plans as well, Brown added.

Immediately following her disappearance, the Sheriff’s Office shared the information with the local newspaper, but did not put out a public release through its official channels, nor send the information to other news outlets like WIS.

On Friday, the Sheriff’s Office provided written answers to some questions, but an investigator familiar with the case was not made available for an on-camera interview.

The department did not provide any specifics about who reported the “unconfirmed report of a possible sighting,” when this happened and where.

Family members, however, say they fear Aguilar is gone.

“She would’ve come back by now, or at least called somebody,” Brown said.

Sarah Shipman, Aguilar’s sister, agrees, and said she does not believe that her sibling would vanish without her belongings, and miss important family events.

There was a law enforcement presence at Aguilar’s last known location, the place she was staying with her ex-boyfriend on Fourwind Road, throughout the morning on Friday.

The Sheriff’s Office said they could not explain why so they do not “jeopardize the case.”

“I wish that they would’ve done a lot more than what they did in the beginning,” Brown said.

Brown implored the community to come forward with information, regardless of how inconsequential it may seem.

“If they see anything, they think they see anything, if they hear anything, that we just want to know, we just want to get an idea, a lead, anything so we could bring her home, alive or not,” she said.

Neighbors tell WIS that their statements were taken for the first time on Friday.

The Sheriff’s Office declined to answer questions about whether there is a suspect or person of interest in the case, saying they “cannot comment on particulars of an investigation.”

The public is asked to contact the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office with tips, leads or information.

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HOLLY HILL, S.C. (WIS) - As the family of an Orangeburg County woman who went missing four months ago seeks answers, the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office is releasing new information about the case.

Melissa Aguilar of Holly Hill was reported missing by an ex-boyfriend on Aug. 18, an Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office report states.

Deputies said Friday in a statement that it put out a public call for leads after an “unconfirmed report of a possible sighting.”

Investigators believe she left a home on Fourwind Road, which is in an unincorporated area of Orangeburg County, after an argument with her ex.

ANOTHER MISSING WOMAN – JAMILLA SMITH:

Aguilar’s youngest daughter, Shanna Brown, said the last four months have been excruciatingly painful. Brown said she used to speak with her mother every day and the fear of the unknown has caused her “anger, heartache, and worry.”

“It’s been really hard trying to juggle a job and put on a smile and act like nothing’s wrong when there’s so much wrong,” she said.

Brown described her last conversation with her mother on Aug. 17, the night before she was reported missing. She said Aguilar sounded upbeat and happy during that call. She was excited about her oldest daughter’s upcoming wedding in September, and the pair discussed Brown’s future wedding plans as well, Brown said.

Immediately following her disappearance, the sheriff’s office shared the information with the local newspaper, but did not put out a public release through its official channels, nor send the information to other news outlets, WIS-TV reported.

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The Sheriff’s Office provided written answers to some questions Friday, but an investigator familiar with the case was not made available for an on-camera interview.

The agency did not provide any specifics about who reported the “unconfirmed report of a possible sighting” or when or where the sighting happened.

Family members, however, say they fear Aguilar is gone.

“She would’ve come back by now, or at least called somebody,” Brown said.

MORE | Homicide ruled out in S.C. death; persons of interests ‘cleared’

Sarah Shipman, Aguilar’s sister, agrees and said she does not believe that her sibling would vanish without her belongings, and miss important family events.

There was a law enforcement presence at Aguilar’s last-known location, the place she was staying with her ex-boyfriend on Fourwind Road, throughout the morning on Friday.

The sheriff’s office said they could not provide details out of concern that doing so could “jeopardize the case.”

“I wish that they would’ve done a lot more than what they did in the beginning,” Brown said.

Brown implored the community to come forward with information, regardless of how inconsequential it may seem.

“If they see anything, they think they see anything, if they hear anything, that we just want to know, we just want to get an idea, a lead, anything so we could bring her home, alive or not,” she said.

The sheriff’s office declined to answer questions about whether there is a suspect or person of interest in the case, saying they “cannot comment on particulars of an investigation.”

The public is asked to contact the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office with tips, leads or information, at 803-534-3550.

Copyright 2023 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.

A tree stump still sits in front of a church in Holly Hill, the scene of a huge downed tree during storm winds. On Sunday church members gather to give thanks.

HOLLY HILL, S.C. — When a large tree fell in front of the Holly Hill Methodist Church during strong winds, the Rev. John Elmore wasn't sure if Sunday's church service would go on; however, with the community's help, the church is fully functional and giving back to others.

A song of praise and thanksgiving was sung inside Holly Hill United Methodist Church on Sunday. The view is a stark difference from the one on Thursday after Tropical Storm Idalia ripped through the area. Elmore said he was cleaning up some flooding inside the church when his week changed instantly.

"My wife actually heard something. She said, 'What was that?' I said, 'I don't know, come on, let's move some chairs.' When we walked outside, the mayor and city workers were here and the tree was laying across the street," Elmore said. "We got it to where they could use a tractor, and of course, they pushed it and blocked about two-thirds of the front of the church."

A News19 crew was in Holly Hill Thursday to see the tree completely turned over in the street, with church members using chainsaws to break it down.

On Sunday, no tree remained in front of the church, and the road was open to normal traffic. The Rev. Elmore said the trials of the storm were a key part of the message of his sermon.

"Some of the illustrations that we used in the sermon were tied to the tree and tied to the storm because we all had lived it," he said. "And so, we can speak into that reality of the scriptures and how they relate to us."

A small crowd gathered inside for the church on Sunday. According to Elmore, many helped get the church operating that day. He said that, in the coming week, his church will have the opportunity to help others in worse situations through the Methodist church's emergency response team.

"We have 10 to 12 trailers that are fully stocked to do tarping, muck-outs from flooding homes, [and] tree removal equipment," he said. "We've received an invitation to go to Ray City, Georgia."

Elmore said he's seen God work through people locally and nationally during the storm, giving more opportunities to spread the gospel.

"It's always people trying to help us in the time of storms, and we should always be willing to be that," he said. "Because when we do, people get to see our love for other people, and I think the scripture is always about loving other people."

ORANGEBURG, S.C. (WCSC) - The Orangeburg County Coroner’s Office confirmed Tuesday that human remains found earlier this month in Holly Hill are those of a woman reported missing in August.

The coroner was able to confirm the remains were those of 49-year-old Melissa Aguilar using dental records, WIS-TV reported.

That’s news that Orangeburg County Sheriff Leroy Ravenell said he learned from Aguilar’s family, not from official channels, shortly before a Tuesday afternoon news conference on the case. That news conference seemed to raise more questions than provide answers, however.

Ravenell said family members told him that someone at the Orangeburg County Coroner’s Office told family members that the human remains discovered on Jan. 4 were those of Aguilar.

“After talking to the family, they informed me that they were informed by the coroner’s office that this was — this actually came back to be Melissa,” Ravenell said.

But the sheriff said his agency had not yet been informed of that confirmation and that he was trying to get a call through to the coroner’s office.

“Officially, we’re still waiting on our own word, but that’s what the family is telling me from the guy from the coroner’s office,” he said. “If that’s the case, I gave the family my condolences and told them that we will continue to pray for them and that this investigation, even though we were working it as a missing person, you know, I will tell you here and now that this was, this investigation, all the time was going in two different directions.”

Aguilar’s sister, Sarah Shipman, said they’ve been experiencing this lack of communication throughout the investigation.

“I don’t know if people know the locations of those two offices but they’re like a building apart,” Shipman said, “Not only did we get a lack of communication, but they can’t communicate with each other.”

Shipman said she filed a formal complaint against the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office through the Attorney General’s Office this past weekend, citing a lack of communication and transparency throughout the investigation.

She said she believes Tuesday’s news conference stemmed from her complaint, but a spokesperson for the agency said they had no knowledge of the complaint at the time.

Aguilar had been reported missing on Aug. 18 by an ex-boyfriend, the sheriff said. Ravenell said their job now is to find out the manner of death.

“And if it was some foul play, then you can be assured that we’ll find out and we will have somebody in custody if there was some foul play,” he said.

Ravenell said investigators questioned people in the months since Aguilar was reported missing, but said without the discovery of remains and the confirmation that the remains were those of Aguilar, they did not know whether anyone was responsible for her disappearance. But he said his agency has a “person of interest” in that disappearance.

“We talked to him, we had enough reason to think that we needed to get his phone and we needed to get this DVR and analyze it,” he said.

The sheriff did not name the person of interest or any possible connection with Aguilar.

Aguilar’s family said the remains were found less than a half-mile from her home.

After asking neighbors for an approximate location of where the remains had been found, Shipman, said she and Agular’s two daughters, Birttany Ranew and Shanna Brown went to the site the next day, hoping for what she called closure.

“As I was hugging my nieces and consoling them, I looked down and found my sister’s jawbone between my feet,” Shipman said on Wednesday.

As of then, the Orangeburg County Coroner’s Office had not confirmed to the family that the remains were of Aguilar. Deputies said the remains had been sent to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division for processing and identification.

“We know her smile, and that smile was in the dirt, and you don’t unsee that, and you know someone’s smile,” Shipman said.

Shipman said investigators promised to collect the rest of the remains, but that when she and Brown returned to the scene the following day, they found what appeared to be several more bones and a tooth.

Ravenell defended his team amid questions about how family members could have found remains after they had supposedly been collected.

“The coroner collected the remains that were there,” Ravenell said.

When a reporter asked about the fact that it struck some people as unusual that there would still be remains left for the family to discover, Ravenell said it struck him as unusual as well.

“You know, it’s just that, just in a case of a dead body, the coroner comes and they pronounce and then they collect and remove. It’s the same thing,” he said.

Orangeburg County Coroner Samuetta Marshall said they “collected what they saw.” She said, although it’s not unusual, there was no boundary set up by law enforcement indicating where the remains were discovered.

Ravenell said he can understand the family being upset about the lack of answers they’ve received so far and said he wished he’d had the information they told him they had received from the coroner’s office.

“I would be upset. I would be angry with somebody. So I don’t hold anything against the family,” he said. “A lot of people would be way more outraged than they were.”

Moving forward, Shipman said she hopes the agency will show more respect to their family and provide answers regarding what happened to her sister.

“We were screaming this to Orangeburg the moment we saw her smile, it wasn’t relief, it was, ‘I told you so,’” Shipman said.

Sheriff Leroy Ravenell released the following statement:

“On Tuesday, I held a press conference with the sole purpose of informing the public after we had conferred with the family as to where an investigation stood into the recovery of human remains near Holly Hill on January 4, 2024. The community has a vested interest in their county and deserve to know where we stood.”

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

Orangeburg County School District announced the new school being built in Holly Hill will be named East Lake Elementary School.

“In addition to the school's name, we are excited to reveal the school mascot and colors. East Lake Elementary School will proudly carry the mascot of the Eagles, symbolizing the school's commitment to excellence, courage and high aspirations,” OCSD Superintendent Dr. Shawn Foster said in a release.

“The school colors will be green, blue, and gold, each color representing one of the current schools involved in this unifying project, reflecting our commitment to community,” Foster said.

Trustees voted 7-2 during their Tuesday meeting to approve the renaming, the mascot and the school colors.

Trustees Idella Carson and Dr. William O'Quinn voted in opposition, expressing concerns about the number of community members who participated in the process.

“We are rushing it. Give the community a little more time to grasp what they want to name the school,” Carson said.

The district announced in October that it was seeking community input for the naming of the new school and its colors and mascot.

The selection process involved parents, teachers, community members and principals from Vance-Providence, Holly Hill and St. James-Gailliard Elementary Schools, the district said in a release.

OCSD reported 229 participants shared their thoughts and preferences.

Trustees learned that the most common suggestion submitted had the word “east” within the name in some form or fashion.

Other names suggested included Parkway Elementary, Palmetto Elementary and Lake Marion Elementary, according to district officials.

“There is nothing in the name that actually denotes where this is other than it is east for us,” O'Quinn said. He thought naming the school after Lake Marion would make sense.

Trustee R.L. "Poppy" Brown, who represents the eastern portion of the county, said the people he talked to didn’t have much of an interest in the school’s name.

Board Vice Chair Dr. Debora Brunson said the board followed policy and procedures and people had a month to provide input.

Foster said the district cannot wait too long to finalize a decision, particularly when it comes to school colors because supplies such as floor tiles need to be ordered in the right color for the school to open on time.

Construction has already begun on the school, which will be built at 1490 Brant Ave. It will serve up to 750 students and can be expanded to serve 900.

In related matters, trustees were given updates on the East Lake Elementary, Clark Middle School and Lake Marion Middle School building projects.

There have been no safety issues and the projects are on schedule, OCSD Assistant Superintendent for Operations Dr. Jesse Washington said.

In other business:

• Trustees unanimously approved the donation of two out-of-circulation activity buses to Mount Zion Baptist Church. The church requested the buses.

The district has about 10 activity buses currently out of circulation.

• District employees were informed they will receive their contracts and letters of intent for employment for the upcoming 2024-2025 school year.

The letters will be sent out through the district's electronic platform by Nov. 29.

Employees will have the option to remain employed with the district, resign, retire or transfer.

The letters of intent are nonbinding, but help the district determine what positions it needs to recruit for the upcoming year. Resignation and retirement letters would be considered binding, according to district officials.

• Trustees recognized Edisto High School's Golden Essence Drumline Percussion Ensemble for being first-place winners in the South Carolina Band Directors Association Winter Assemble championship.

The district recognized the students’ receipt of championship rings.

• Brookdale Elementary School teacher D'Ariel Walker was named the October Rookie Teacher of the Month for October for her passion for teaching and learning and her desire to help students reach their full potential.

• Sheridan Elementary School's Elizabeth Johnson was recognized as the district's Employee of the Month. She was recognized for her teamwork in helping with student enrollment and registration.

• Trustees went into closed session to discuss personnel and contractual matters and to receive legal advice. The specific topics under discussion were not disclosed.

• Trustees were informed a State of the District address will be held Thursday, Dec. 14 at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College. The event will be held at 9 a.m.

• The next board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 12 at district headquarters at 102 Founders Court in Orangeburg.