The Georgetown County Coroner’s Office released preliminary autopsy results Friday for 5-year-old Saylor Hayes, finding the non-verbal autistic girl died of pulmonary edema consistent with drowning.
Saylor’s body was discovered Aug. 31 in a waterway near her family’s vacation home on Pawleys Island, South Carolina, wearing a bathing suit and an ankle strap resembling a child’s wrist tether, according to the coroner’s office. The examination by Medical University of South Carolina found no visible trauma, though a final autopsy report is expected in eight to 10 weeks and no official cause of death has been determined.
The results came just three days after Saylor’s parents, John Herb Hayes III, 70, and Geordyn Nichole Hayes, 31, were arrested in Tennessee and subsequently extradited back to South Carolina. The couple waived extradition in a Tennessee court Thursday and were released to Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office custody Friday morning.
Both parents face charges of unlawfully placing a child at risk and willfully abandoning a child. The arrest affidavit accuses them of putting Saylor “at an unreasonable risk of harm affecting her life and safety by failing to provide supervision and safeguards appropriate for a severely nonverbal, autistic, five-year-old child with a known affinity to water and a history of elopement.”
The charges are not the couple’s first encounter with child-related legal trouble. In July 2023, both were charged with two counts each of felony child abuse involving reckless or willful disregard for human life in Washington County, Virginia. They pleaded nolo contendere a year later and received two years probation.
Geordyn Hayes faced additional charges in February of this year, including felony child cruelty and unlawful conduct toward a child. The felony child cruelty charge was dropped Aug. 14, and the child abuse charge was amended to contributing to the delinquency of a minor three days later, resolving with nearly $550 in court fees. She also pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor public intoxication on March 12.
Saylor had been equipped with a Project Lifesaver transmitter since 2024 due to her tendency to wander, but the device was removed before the family left Virginia for their South Carolina vacation. It remains unclear who removed the tracker or when.
The girl was reported missing Aug. 30, one day before her body was found. She was not wearing the monitoring device when she walked away from the property.
Hours before her capture in Tennessee, Geordyn Hayes posted on social media calling Saylor “Mommy’s little angel.”
The couple, married for five years, fled over 300 miles north to Tennessee after their daughter’s death, though their reason for doing so has not been disclosed.
Saylor’s death has drawn renewed attention to the challenges families face in safeguarding children with autism who are prone to wandering, particularly near water. Project Lifesaver transmitters are designed to assist in quickly locating individuals with cognitive conditions who may elope, but the device can only function if worn and activated.
Bond was denied for both parents during a hearing where the judge cited the “egregious nature” of the charges.