SOUTHWEST HARBOR – Before she was accused of murder, a Southwest Harbor woman was considered a good, thoughtful caretaker – even an “angel,” a woman who knows her said Tuesday.

Michelle Mills was hired last November by Jacqueline “Jill” Evans to be the full-time caregiver for Dari Burke, a good friend of Evans’ who was stricken with the autoimmune disease lupus.

Mills, 37, had been working a few hours a week, helping out with housekeeping for Burke, when the sick woman’s health took a turn for the worse.

Evans, known in the community to be extremely generous, decided to help by paying for Mills’ time.

“Michelle was fantastic,” said Lin Gould, a friend of Burke’s who knows Mills.

“She drove up to the hospital in Bangor, took care of all the animals,” Gould said in an interview. “And we thought, what an angel. That’s what we thought. … Oh, what a nightmare.”

Gould, a teacher at Mount Desert Island Regional High School, said she became concerned when Mills’ job description changed and her responsibilities multiplied many times over.

Gould became curious about the woman’s past, although, she said, not critical of her work.

She sent an e-mail to her colleagues at the high school to see whether anyone knew anything about Mills. She learned little.

“Michelle had catapulted into this position of being completely trusted. … Knowing the degree to which Dari was so sick and so incapacitated, it just made me nervous.”

After Evans’ death, Gould learned that Mills had been something of a “troubled teen” with a “difficult home life.”

Steven Juskewitch, a lawyer and close family friend, agreed that Mills’ family had been through a lot.

But he said her mother, Jean Young, told him her daughter had never had a violent side.

“She has never seen any evidence of violence in Michelle …,” Juskewitch said. “This is a little bit baffling.”

Mills seemed charming, thoughtful and fragile, according to Gould. She was a person people wanted to help.

“She had us all convinced … It’s hard to look back at that and see how much of it is real,” Gould said. “I think she had ‘being charming’ down to a fine art.”

Just before Christmas, the situation began to unravel, Gould said. Money appeared to become more of an issue for Mills.

“I talked to Michelle because I was interested in hiring her as a dog sitter,” she said. Mills requested $100 a day for caring for Gould’s five dogs. That was far too much, Gould said, especially considering that Mills had received $11,000 for a little more than a month’s caretaking work.

“Anybody connected in any way with this feels grief-stricken and guilty because we all wish we could have foreseen the future,” Gould said. “None of us wanted to believe this. We all wanted to believe there was some other explanation.”