MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has doubled the reward for an arrest in the tragic killing of a Little River woman at the Myrtle Beach Mall.
Francis Mae Davis was murdered in the Myrtle Beach Mall parking lot Jan. 8. Horry County Police have since released the incident report, but details are sparse.
Lt. Raul Denis with Horry County Police says the ATF offered a $5,000 reward to anyone who can provide information leading to the arrest and conviction of Davis’ killer. That reward was doubled Feb. 3 to $10,000.
Police say Davis, 78, was found shot and slumped over inside the car where she was waiting for her daughter to finishing shopping inside a department store at the mall.
Emergency services took Davis to the hospital, but police have not specified if she died at the scene, en route, or at the hospital. However, Davis’ daughter, Shelly Wells, recalls her mother had no pulse when she found her covered in blood in the vehicle Friday afternoon.
That Friday morning, Wells drove her mother to go shopping. Wells says they first went to Walmart for a few items, then stopped at a convenience store.
“She wanted a Powerball ticket, so I got her a Powerball ticket,” remembers Wells.
Wells then made a stop at the Myrtle Beach Mall around noon.
“I said ‘I’m going to go into JCPenny; I want two things,'” Wells told her mother.
“‘No, I’m going to stay in the car,’ and she’s done this a hundred times before, stayed in the car,” explains Wells of her mother’s response. “She was tired, didn’t want to get out of the car and knew I was going to be quick.”
Wells says she picked up the two items she was looking for and when she got back, she thought her mother was asleep.
“I said ‘mom, wake up,’ [but] she was not responding. I lifted her chin up and saw everything and started freaking out,” she explained.
Shaking and in shock, Wells says she had trouble even dialing 911, “and that was at 12:16, so in the 15 minutes that’s when what happened, happened.”
On the phone with 911, Wells says dispatch asked her to check for a pulse.
“I did all that, and am not hearing anything,” she remembered.
Wells says the driver’s side door was unlocked, Davis’ purse was missing and her cell phone was still in her hand.
“The last phone call on there was that morning when she called me to say ‘yeah I’ll drive down there, lets go together,'” she said.
Davis’ 79th birthday would have been Saturday, but instead of planning a party, her family had to make funeral arrangements.
“God called her home. Unfortunately it was in this tragic way; but he called her home and that’s when he wanted her home,” said Michele Gagne, Davis’ other daughter.
A memorial service for Mae Davis will be held at 1 p.m. on January 28th at Lee Funeral Home in Little River. The public is welcome, and are asked to wear purple, Davis’ favorite color.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to be made to a GoFundMe page that will help pay for a billboard in the hopes of finding the killer.
Horry County Police are investigating Davis’ death as a homicide. News13 asked police about surveillance video or any warrants served in connection to the case, but Lt. Raul Denis says no further details can be released at this time. News13 also requested any further incident reports detailing the circumstances surrounding Davis’ tragic killing, but have not received any further documents beyond the initial call report.
