Watson Vigil Planned for Tonight

A candlelight vigil is planned for 7 p.m. tonight in Memorial Waterfront Park in Mount Pleasant as the search for Dara Lee Watson stretches into its second week.

The vigil follows a 4 p.m. distribution of fliers that seek information on Watson's disappearance.

The event's organizer, Kimberly Kite, doesn't know Watson but told the Post and Courier she got involved because of her knowledge of other missing-person cases.

"It will give people a place to see what's going on and to pray," the former police officer said. "You don't want to see anything bad happen to anybody like that."

Read more about Watson's case.

On Thursday, divers made a key find in their search for the missing 30-year-old woman when they came across her cell phone in a pond near the home she shared with fiance David Hedrick.

Police believe Hedrick used the phone for several days after he was involved in Watson's disappearance. The woman's employer and her sister reported getting text messages from Watson's number.

See a timeline of events surrounding Dara Watson's disappearance.

Her burned-out SUV was found on Feb. 7 in a remote part of Northern Charleston County in the Francis Marion National Forest. [Zoom in on the interactive map above for key locations in the search.]

Passersby reported seeing Hedrick emerge from the woods with a shovel, and a motorist told officers he gave Hedrick a ride from the forest to Hedrick's home in the upscale Rivertowne subdivision.

Hedrick committed suicide in his bed on Feb. 10 hours after police questioned him about Watson's whereabouts.

Deputies disclosed earlier in the week that they have recovered what could be that shovel, and it is undergoing DNA tests to link it to the disappearance.

The search will resume on Friday, a full week after Watson was reported missing. Her family last saw her on Feb. 6 when she and Hedrick left Boone, N.C.