For more than a day, the search for Saylor Hayes stretched across land and water around Pawleys Island. Hundreds of people participated. Multiple agencies deployed boats, aircraft, drones and ground teams.

Then, on August 31, the search ended with a devastating discovery.

Saylor, five years old, was found in the Waccamaw River near her family’s vacation rental.

The case has since moved from a missing-child search to a criminal investigation, and the release of preliminary autopsy findings has added an important piece of evidence without resolving the central mystery.

According to the Georgetown County Coroner’s Office, the examination found pulmonary edema, meaning fluid in Saylor’s lungs. No obvious external or internal trauma was identified. Officials have said the finding is consistent with drowning, but the official cause and manner of death remain undetermined while additional testing is completed.

The coroner expects that process to take approximately eight to 10 weeks.

The timeline leading to the discovery is now being examined closely.

Saylor had been staying with her family at a rental home in the Hagley Estates area. On August 30, she was reported missing. Her father told emergency dispatchers that she had apparently gotten away and emphasized that she was nonverbal and difficult to locate.

The response was immediate.

Search teams from several agencies converged on the area, while members of the public also joined the effort. Investigators eventually focused on a series of details that they say raised concerns about the level of supervision Saylor had received.

According to the arrest warrants, Saylor had a known history of wandering and an attraction to water. She was also enrolled in Project Lifesaver, a tracking program for vulnerable individuals. But authorities say the transmitter ᴀssigned to her had not been brought to South Carolina and was later found in Virginia.

Investigators further allege that Saylor’s parents directed searchers toward the use of the tracking system even though the device was not with her. Authorities also allege that search efforts were diverted away from nearby water.

Those allegations formed part of the investigation that resulted in charges against John Herb Hayes III and Geordyn Nichole Hayes.

The couple was arrested in Tennessee on September 1. They were later returned to South Carolina, where they faced charges of unlawfully placing a child at risk and willfully abandoning a child. A magistrate denied bond during a subsequent hearing.

The criminal allegations, however, are separate from the medical question.

The preliminary autopsy does not establish that anyone caused Saylor’s death. Nor does it provide a complete reconstruction of how she entered the water. It simply supplies investigators with a medical finding that can be seen in drowning cases.

That is why the final autopsy remains important.

Additional laboratory testing could clarify the medical circumstances and help authorities determine the official cause and manner of death. At the same time, investigators will continue reviewing the timeline, witness accounts, search records, physical evidence and allegations contained in the arrest warrants.

The tragedy began with a child disappearing from a vacation rental.

It has now become a case about the moments before that disappearance, the frantic search that followed, and the unanswered questions surrounding the water where Saylor was ultimately found.

For investigators, the search is over.

The search for the full truth is not.

Source: NYpost