Autopsy Finds 5-Year-Old South Carolina Girl Died of Pulmonary Edema, Parents Charged with Child Endangerment

A coroner's office in Georgetown County, South Carolina, determined that 5-year-old Saylor Hayes died of pulmonary edema, a condition in which fluid accumulates in the lungs, consistent with drowning, according to an autopsy released on Friday. The examination found no visible trauma on the child's body, which was discovered on August 31 in a waterway near the family’s vacation home on Pawleys Island. The final autopsy report is expected in eight to ten weeks.

Saylor, a non-verbal autistic child from Virginia, was found wearing a bathing suit and an ankle strap resembling a child’s wrist tether. She was missing a Project Lifesaver monitoring device that had been removed before the family traveled, though it is unclear who removed it or when.

Her parents, John Herb Hayes III, 70, and Geordyn Nichole Hayes, 31, were arrested in Tennessee on Tuesday and charged with unlawfully placing a child at risk and willfully abandoning a child. The arrest affidavit alleges they failed to provide supervision appropriate for a severely non-verbal autistic child with a known affinity for water and a history of elopement. The couple waived extradition in a Tennessee court on Thursday and were transferred to the custody of the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office on Friday.

The Hayes couple had previously faced felony child-abuse charges in Virginia in July 2023, to which they pleaded nolo contendere and received two years of probation; that case was dismissed in early 2026. Geordyn Hayes also faced additional child-cruelty and child-abuse charges earlier this year, some of which were later reduced or dismissed.

Saylor was reported missing on August 30, a day before her body was found. Hours before her capture, her mother posted a tribute on social media referring to her as “Mommy’s little angel.”