Mother, real estate agent dies in murder-suicide

PHOTO: Brittany Dyan Carter

Milly Taylor first met Brittany Dyan Carter in Royal Palm Beach when she was about 8 years old. Taylor sold Carter’s mom their first house. Over two decades later, she hired Carter as a real estate agent on her Keyes Realty team. She made the offer Jan. 19.

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“I was looking to hire someone and saving that space for someone that was Spanish-speaking,” Taylor said. “To say that I was blown away (by Carter) doesn’t justify it. She was so impressive that within five minutes of our conversation, I threw the language speaking out the window and said, ‘I gotta hire this girl!’ She was eloquent, intelligent, energetic and charismatic.”

One day after hiring her, Taylor learned that Carter was dead.

The 34-year-old mother of two boys and a girl had been shot and killed by her estranged partner, Stephen P. Smith, in her home in Wellington. Smith, 45, then killed himself, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said.

PBSO spokesperson Teri Barberra said Smith and Carter were the only people inside the home, located in the Olympia community near the Mall at Wellington Green, at the time of the shooting.

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The circumstances of Carter’s death were not mentioned at her funeral service Saturday at Hillcrest Memorial Park in West Palm Beach. Instead, mourners highlighted her strength and exuberance.

Carter had big blue eyes and a bright smile to match her “vibrant and fierce” personality, friends recalled.

Above all, she cherished her role as a mother, those in attendance said. A display of some of her favorite things featured framed photographs of her with her three children, and a sign in block letters: “MOM.”

“She was the best mom — that’s how we want to remember her,” said one friend, Lisa Silva. “Let us remember her beautiful life.”

There were more than 103,000 domestic violence offenses reported to law enforcement in Florida in 2021, the most recent year for which statistics are available. In all, 220 resulted in death, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Uniform Crime Report.

Deaths by suicide made up 54% of all gun deaths in the U.S. in 2020, while 43% were homicides, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Three murder-suicide cases and nine domestic-violence homicides were reported in Palm Beach County during 2022, according to the Palm Beach Post homicides database.

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