Beaufort Co. cops looking for mysterious ‘Carlos’ to help solve a 30-year-old murder
Nearly 30 years after a dead woman’s body was found in a drainage ditch along a Yemassee road, police identified her as Maria Telles-Gonzalez, a resident of Kissimmee, Florida. Since her murder in 1995 until she was identified in October of 2022, she had only been known as Beaufort County’s “Jane Doe.”
Now, investigators have released new information about their search for “Carlos” — a former close friend of Gonzalez — who could be crucial in finding out who killed her and why. Carlos’ last name and many other details about him remain shrouded in mystery.
Following the December 2022 announcement of Gonzalez’s identity from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, investigators spoke with a female friend of the victim, learning of Carlos’ first name. In the mid-90s, Carlos was in his early or mid 30s, with a slender build and a height of 5-foot-8. He lived in central Florida, possibly near the Orlando area, according to cold case investigator Bob Bromage.
“Finding Carlos is of critical importance to furthering the investigation at this point,” Bromage said. “Carlos may have information on the circumstances of her disappearance and her death.”
Carlos likely lived in central Florida for a while prior to meeting Gonzalez around 1995, Bromage told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette, but police don’t know if he is still in the area.
Investigators have identified one person of interest in the decades-old murder case but “are not ruling anyone out” in the search for suspects, Bromage said.
What happened to her?
On May 24, 1995, Gonzalez’s body was found face-down in a drainage ditch on Yemassee’s Cotton Hall Road off Interstate 95. State employees who were mowing the grass in the area made the discovery.
Gonzalez had no wallet, purse or other identification. All she had on was a pair of Leonisa underwear, a brand made in Colombia and sold in South and Central America at the time.
The woman’s three children told police they last saw their mother the morning of May 1995 when they were leaving for school. The day before her disappearance, Gonzalez had returned home from a trip to Puerto Rico to visit family. When the children returned home from school, their mother was nowhere to be found. She hadn’t taken her car, but the suitcase she had packed for Puerto Rico was gone.
The children’s father, Gonzalez’s husband, whose name has not been released by police, was alone with her at home at the time, police said.
Although her body was found in Yemassee, Gonzalez was most likely murdered in Florida, according to Bromage.
A commitment to cases gone cold
Although the investigation into Gonzalez’s death is far from over, the Sheriff’s Office has a robust track record in solving cold cases — active investigations in which all leads have been exhausted. Investigation into a 1988 shooting death of a 63-year-old newspaper carrier from Bluffton was reignited 11 years later, when three interviews with incarcerated former witnesses helped secure a murder charge and an eventual conviction for voluntary manslaughter. In 2016, nearly 40-year-old DNA evidence uncovered the killer in the 1980 murder of 18-year-old Beaufort resident David Krulewicz.
Both cold cases were solved through the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office cold case investigations initiative, created in 1999 by Sheriff PJ Tanner at the start of his decades-long tenure. In 2010, Tanner expanded those efforts to include the volunteer Cold Case Committee, composed of retired lawyers, medical pathologists and detectives.
In addition to his role as Hilton Head’s director of public safety, Bromage spearheads the Sheriff’s Office cold case initiative — but he credits Sheriff Tanner for the task force’s strong and storied foundation. Even in the late 90s, he said, teams dedicated entirely to cold case investigations were almost unheard of in the world of law enforcement.
Anyone with information about Maria Telles-Gonzalez’s disappearance or muder is encouraged to call cold case investigator Bob Bromage at 843-816-8013.
