Soon-to-be married Little River woman beaten to death. How did her killer go unnoticed?
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Horry County’s Unsolved Homicides
Horry County has a number of cold cases, some that date back nearly 50 years. Police have taken different approaches to try and solve them.
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Soon-to-be married Little River woman beaten to death. How did her killer go unnoticed?
Michelle Robinson sits in a living room chair, one leg tucked under the other, with the sun streaming through the window behind her.
In her lap are photos of her daughter Amber Berbiglia. The photos show the blonde-haired young woman smiling, something she did often.
“Amber was the light. She would just light up the room,” Robinson said. “She was happy all the time.”
The Little River resident looks down at the pictures as she recalls the day an Horry County Police officer knocked on the door to tell her that Berbiglia had been killed.
That was on May 3, 2013, when the 23-year-old’s body was found by mud boggers outside her vehicle on Old Sanders Drive near the Robert Edge Parkway overpass in North Myrtle Beach.
She had been beaten to death with a large boulder. Police told Robinson that it looked like Berbiglia tried to run before she was killed.
Because her body was still warm, her killer was believed to have left the scene just a short time before she was discovered and police arrived on scene. But the person was never found.
Robinson said she could accept her daughter’s death if it was an accident, but not the way Berbiglia died.
“She was so popular. She was so in love. I can’t just see her being beaten,” Robinson said.
But as Robinson marks the 12th year of Berbiglia’s death, no one has been charged in the crime, leaving the 65-year-old to continue her push to find her daughter’s killer.
“It won’t change it, but it will give me peace of mind of who did it and why,” Robinson said. “Why is the biggest question.”
She’s not the only family member who has that question. Berbiglia is one of at least 60 unsolved homicide cases in Horry County.
Was person interrupted in Amber’s killing?
It had rained earlier that May day, making the road muddy.
The area looks different than it did all those years ago. At the time, the area was overgrown and only a few homes were located near the crime scene.
It was teenagers riding ATVs along the dirt road who found Berbiglia.
They had passed by her vehicle, which was stuck in the mud, according to information gathered from police and reports by Gina Stevens, a family friend who has been working to keep Berbiglia’s case in the spotlight.
When they rode back by, the vehicle was still there so they pulled over to offer help.
The car was still running and the driver’s door was open. Nearby was a sandal and sunglasses, Stevens said.
The teens then walked around the car and found Berbiglia. She was lying face down outside her vehicle, her cell phone a few inches from her hand.
When police arrived, Berbiglia’s body was still warm, indicating that her death had just happened.
North Myrtle Beach Police were the first to arrive after receiving the 911 call about a woman’s body being found. The case was later given to Horry County Police when it was determined the crime happened outside city limits.
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On the dash cam footage from North Myrtle Beach, Berbiglia’s car can be seen on the roadway, her tires sitting in deep ruts in the road, white smoke coming from her running vehicle. An officer asks for dogs to be brought to the scene, adding, “They just left here. Whoever did this.”
Berbiglia was beaten so badly that police first thought she had been shot.
Only later, after an autopsy was conducted, it was determined she had died from blunt force trauma.
While Horry County Police won’t confirm what was used as a weapon to strike Berbiglia, Robinson said the killer picked up a giant boulder, hitting her daughter in the head. Berbiglia’s skull was fractured in two places.
It doesn’t appear that Berbiglia was robbed and she wasn’t sexually assaulted.
One of the teens did report seeing a man in the area, but the person was never found, Stevens said.
“Did these kids four-wheeling interrupt something?” Stevens wonders. “It really bothers me that somebody is out there walking the streets that can do this to someone else.”
Amber’s final hours recounted
The fashion designer major was a week away from graduating from Horry-Georgetown Technical College and three months from getting married.
Berbiglia was engaged to a Spanish man she had met while studying in London. Two weeks before her death, she had picked up her wedding dress.
On the day she died, Berbiglia ran errands before her 4 p.m. shift at Greg Norman’s Australian Grille in North Myrtle Beach, where she worked.
She got her hair cut about 12:30 p.m., returned some clothing at Ross Dress for Less, paid her cable bill and stopped at a gas station, where she could be seen on video footage.
Berbiglia texted a friend at 2:35 p.m.
At 3:15 p.m., it is believed the young woman returned to her Little River apartment, which was only about five minutes from where her body was found. A neighbor told police she heard Berbiglia yell, “What are you doing in here?”
It is unclear who Berbiglia may have been talking to.
What happened from the time the neighbor heard Berbiglia yell until her body was discovered at 4:12 p.m. is unknown.
Traffic camera footage on U.S. 17 showed what appeared to be a dark figure in Berbiglia’s vehicle. Horry County Police Capt. Gregory Lent, who is over the Criminal Investigation Division and has been working with the family on the case, said there is surveillance video of Berbiglia traveling through North Myrtle Beach.
“I can’t give any answer of whether there was or wasn’t anyone in the car,” he said.
Lent said that Berbiglia’s car was processed for evidence, including sending items to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to use its M-Vac system to collect DNA. The technology is a wet-vacuum-based forensic collection device that can pull difficult evidence from items that may be porous, rough, or large.
Lent would not confirm what items were processed or whether any fingerprints were found. He also would not say what leads police are pursuing or if they have any suspects.
At this point, the case remains “unresolved,” he said.
Robinson is frustrated with police, believing that evidence wasn’t collected properly the day of Berbiglia’s killing. She’s also upset that it has been 12 years without what she says is any real progress in the case.
To solve the case, police need community members who have information to come forward, “that’s the biggest thing that will help any investigation that we have,” Lent said.
“There is at least somebody out there who particularly knows what happened to Amber Berbiglia, and I offer that person today, if they have the ability and means to come forward and sit down and speak with us and explain what happened to her, by that I mean the person who is responsible for her death.
“Like any family that has lost somebody suddenly and tragically due to violence, I think Amber’s mother understands this,” Lent said, “we will not give up. We will doing everything we can to find the person responsible.”
Mother looking for answers
The family has tried several ways to generate new information in the case. A reward was offered for information leading to Berbiglia’s killer, a billboard featuring her face was erected and recently Amber’s story was featured on national crime shows.
None of it has generated any clues as to who could have taken the young woman’s life.
In 2016 Stevens started the Facebook group Justice for Amber Berbiglia, which details information on the case, in an effort to keep the case in the spotlight.
“Amber deserves justice,” Stevens said.
Berbiglia’s death has affected her mother greatly. After she was killed, Robinson had a stroke.
Robinson knows she’s not the only one whose loved one’s murder has gone cold.
Each year, she hosts a memorial on the anniversary of Berbiglia’s death to not only remember her daughter, but other people who have been victims of violent crimes.
Robinson thinks about the day Amber was killed almost every day.
She also thinks about how her daughter could have been married or had kids.
“I miss her so much,” Robinson says while looking at the photos in her lap. “It will always be a shock until I get answers.”
This story was originally published May 12, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
