PUNTA GORDA — A Cape Coral woman, who was a guardian and caretaker to her longtime friend with dementia, is charged with dumping her body in a remote area of southern Charlotte County a year ago.
Lori Sue Hamilton, 60, was living with Brenda Bormann Corbin, 59, in Cape Coral in 2025, according to investigators.
Lori Hamilton
CCSO
Hamilton was jailed this week, charged with disturbing a dead body or clothing-articles nearby, a third-degree felony, records show.
Hamilton was the person who reported Corbin missing from the home they shared on May 19, 2025.
Florida Wildlife officers found Corbin’s decomposed body May 23 in the Babcock Preserve — a large wild area east of Punta Gorda and about 30 miles from where Hamilton and Corbin lived in Cape Coral.
A medical examiner’s report later concluded the manner and cause of Corbin’s death were both “undetermined.”
Brenda Corbin
PHOTO PROVIDED
But before the body was found, Cape Coral Police detectives began investigating Hamilton, according to court records released Saturday.
“Hamilton did not seem too concerned about Brenda’s disappearance. She had washed and put all of Brenda’s clothes away for her,” detectives reported.
Hamilton initially told detectives that Corbin may have been with a Naples man who had given Corbin a ride in 2019 and then held her against her will, reports show.
Detectives in both Cape Coral and Charlotte County used license plate reading cameras, security cameras, and cellphone pings to track Hamilton’s movements on the night before she reported Corbin missing.
They also used surveillance to see what she did afterward.
Investigators learned that Hamilton drove her Ford F-150 pickup from Cape Coral into the Babcock Preserve and was there between 2:48 and 3:13 a.m. on May 19, 2025. She filed a missing person report later that morning, records show.
“Hamilton’s demeanor changed,” when she was later questioned, detectives said. “She became quiet and looked down at the floor.”
She would not say why she was in that remote area, only saying “she had previously owned horses out there and that she did not have to answer that question,” records state.
POWER OF ATTORNEY
Hamilton had power of attorney over Hamilton, records show.
On May, 3, 2025, two weeks before Corbin was reported missing, Hamilton checked Corbin out of the Best Care Senior Living center in Tampa, where she had been living.
Hamilton checked Corbin out “on leave” to attend a celebration of life for a mutual friend in Naples, the reports state, but never brought her back.
Hamilton said she “was not satisfied with the care the facility had been providing Brenda and decided she would care for her until she found a new facility,” records state.
Detectives later learned from employees of Best Care that the facility “had issues with Hamilton.” Corbin was having “behavioral problems,” and Hamilton would not give the on-site doctor the ability to adjust Corbin’s medications, reports show.
Corbin’s nurse said Corbin “was able to care for herself but needed assistance and supervision with memory care,” the report states.
Corbin’s visitor log showed Hamilton had not visited Corbin since June 2024 before checking her out 11 months later.
Detectives spoke with people at the celebration of life that Hamilton and Corbin attended on May 3, 2025.
A woman noticed Corbin “kept wandering off, and Hamilton never got up to look for her,” reports state.
The woman believed Hamilton “was not able to care appropriately” for Corbin and “expressed her concerns over Hamilton not making any effort to look for Brenda when she was reported missing, as Hamilton made no social media posts, nor any phone calls to friends,” reports show.
INVESTIGATION
During their investigation, detectives learned Hamilton drove her pickup, which had a white camper top on it, at 5:06 a.m. May 19, to a 7-Eleven store in North Fort Myers, hours before reporting Corbin missing.
Surveillance cameras showed her pull up to the gas pumps and talk to a man who was buying gas. She walked into the store, paid $17 for gas, and then back to the gas pumps, where she again spoke with the other customer. As she pulled out of the parking lot, headlights from another vehicle illuminated the cab, appearing to show Hamilton was the only person inside.
Detectives later questioned the man at the pump, learning that Hamilton had asked him for money for gas. He gave her $17 from his pocket. When she came back out, she hugged him, he said.
Brenda Corbin missing post, 2025
CAPE CORAL POLICE DEPARTMENT
Detectives also interviewed two men from Hamilton’s neighborhood who they saw at her home on May 21, two days after Corbin was reported missing. The detectives had watched the two men removed two box springs from the home and place them alongside the road.
The men later said they had answered Hamilton’s Facebook post for help moving furniture and had been at the house for a few hours.
One of the men said “Hamilton mentioned her friend was missing and that she was hoping that some guy picked her friend up, and she was hoping she wasn’t dead. Later, she mentioned that she had seen on the news that her friend had passed away, and she did not know how she got to where she was located,” the report states.
Cape Coral police obtained warrants to search Hamilton’s home and truck. In the home, they found “a blanket that had vegetation stuck in the fabric” in a washing machine, and a belt at the bottom of a bag of trash, reports show.
Detectives confiscated the truck.
At a Cape Coral police facility, detectives used cadaver-detecting dogs to do a “vehicle lineup” involving other pickups. The dogs indicated the scent of human remains in the tailgate area of the truck, reports show.
Inside the truck, they found a bag on the backseat floorboard that contained the medications that Corbin had when she was released from the Tampa facility.
“Discolored towels and bedding were also removed from the truck’s bed,” the report states.
VOICEMAILS, PHONE CONVERSATIONS
Detectives later met with Corbin’s children, Christoper Bliss and Heather Bliss.
Heather Bliss told them the last time she spoke to her mother was on Friday, May 16, 2025.
Christopher Bliss said he had received a voicemail May 7, 2025, from his moother, who was using Hamilton’s phone. The voicemail said that Corbin wanted to talk to him.
“Hamilton would not let her know the address where she was, and she felt that it was illegal,” the report states. “It appears as though Hamilton was monitoring the phone call because after Brenda stated that, Hamilton took over the conversation, apologized to Christopher, and ended the phone call. Hamilton then messaged Christopher on May 20th, notifying him of Brenda’s disappearance.”
Heather Bliss participated with detectives in a recorded phone call with Hamilton on Aug. 1, 2025, reports show.
Heather Bliss asked Hamilton why her truck was seen near the preserve. “Hamilton stated she told (detectives) she had horses out there and that the detective was mean, so she kicked him out of her house…When questioned about it being the early morning hours, Hamilton stated, ‘I haven’t killed your mom, I would never,'” the report states.
It states she said she “was not having this conversation.”
“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,” the report states.
ARREST
Cape Coral police have filed no charges against Hamilton involving Corbin’s death.
Police arrested Hamilton on a Charlotte County warrant on late Wednesday.
Charlotte County detectives picked her up at the Lee County Jail on Friday and transferred her to the Charlotte County Jail.
Hamilton had a first appearance hearing Saturday before Judge Russell Kirshy. She remained in the Charlotte County Jail on Saturday with $6,000 bond.
Her next scheduled hearing is Sept. 8 before Circuit Judge Shannon McFee.