Insets, from left: Lori Hamilton (Charlotte County Jail) and Brenda Corbin (Cape Coral police). Background: The Babcock Ranch Preserve in Punta Gorda, Florida, where Hamilton allegedly ditched Corbin's body (Google Maps).
A 60-year-old Florida woman allegedly disposed of the body of her special needs friend whom she was supposed to be caring for in a nature preserve before she reported her missing and pretended as if she didn't know what happened to her.
Lori Hamilton is facing a charge of disturbing a dead body in the death of 58-year-old Brenda Corbin in Cape Coral.
According to a probable cause arrest affidavit, Hamilton reported Corbin missing on May 20, 2025, from her home in the 2700 block of SE 18th Ave. Hamilton told investigators that she believed Corbin walked off in the middle of the night.
Hamilton had power of attorney over her longtime friend, who had dementia and previously lived in an assisted living home. The defendant checked Corbin out of the facility in Tampa earlier in the month to attend a celebration of life for a mutual friend and never brought her back because Hamilton was unsatisfied with the level of care Corbin was getting. Hamilton set up a bedroom for Corbin in her home.
Asked about Corbin's whereabouts, Hamilton told cops she believed Corbin may have been with a man who years earlier "held her against her will for four days," police said. But Hamilton was vague when investigators pressed her for details about what she and Corbin did in the days leading up to her disappearance, according to the affidavit.
"Hamilton could not explain what she and Brenda had done over the weekend," investigators noted. "All she said was that they had gone out but did not remember where they went or what they did. Hamilton did not seem too concerned about Brenda's disappearance."
In the days after Corbin went missing, Hamilton posted to Facebook requesting help moving furniture from her home, never mentioning her friend she'd known since high school had vanished, cops said. She never made any phone calls or any effort to search for her, according to police.
Detectives spoke with Hamilton's neighbors who said they hadn't seen Corbin recently. Doorbell cameras typically picked up the duo walking the dog, but there was nothing captured on the night Hamilton claimed the alleged victim went missing.
License plate reader data from Hamilton's pickup truck and location data on her phone helped fill in the large gaps, cops allege. Cameras caught the truck in the early morning hours of May 19, 2025, in the Fort Myers and Punta Gorda areas. Around 3:30 a.m., she was in the Babcock Ranch Preserve near the intersection of Bermont Road and Chiquita Drive in Punta Gorda.
A motion-sensored trail camera also captured a pickup truck in the area around the same time, cops said. Hamilton claimed she was in the area checking on her horses, but the license plate reader cameras had never picked up her vehicle before the night in question.
When confronted with the vehicle location information, Hamilton's "demeanor changed," and she stopped being cooperative, investigators said.
On May 23, 2025, cops discovered a badly decomposed body covered with brush off an access road in a nature preserve. It was Corbin. There were drag marks in the grass from the edge of the road, per police. An autopsy could not determine the cause or manner of death because of the state of decomposition. The body was also missing the lower leg and part of her left arm due to animal activity, cops said.
When officers notified Hamilton of Corbin's death, she "looked down" and slowly backed into her home before shutting the door in their faces, per the affidavit.
Police seized Hamilton's truck and K-9s alerted to the smell of human remains, cops wrote. Investigators also found Corbin's Social Security card and medications inside the truck. Hamilton refused to give cops access to her phone. She was allegedly unhelpful and combative during other interactions with them.
The woman who hosted the celebration of life noticed that Hamilton "never got up to look" for Corbin when she wandered off during the ceremony, cops said. Staff at the nursing home also "had issues with Hamilton" when they would need something for Corbin's care, the affidavit stated.
Detectives tried to get Hamilton to make incriminating statements during a recorded phone call between her and one of Corbin's adult children. But Hamilton insisted: "I haven't killed your mom. I would never."
"Hamilton spoke more about how the police treated her and the trauma she suffered from the police than anything about Brenda or how Brenda's children felt," cops wrote.
Police arrested Hamilton last week and she remains at the Charlotte County Jail on a $6,000 bond. Her next court date is set for Sept. 8.
Corbin's daughter Heather Bliss told local CBS affiliate WINK that her mother's death stunned her and she never thought Hamilton would be capable of doing anything to hurt her.
"You know, she seemed like she was a good friend to my mom," Bliss told the TV station. "There was just nothing there for me to suspect that she would do something like this."
Bliss said the way Hamilton reacted to her mother's disappearance did not sit well with her.
"At that time it really bothered me," Bliss told WINK. "If my best friend went missing, I'd be posting it all over Facebook. I'd be doing everything I could."