New Twisted Details Emerge in Little Girl's Water Death

The parents of five-year-old sailor Hayes, the girl found dead after this couple said she wandered away on vacation, are back in South Carolina, and it got emotional in the courtroom. "They come through something horrific, and uh, we can't get our daughter to take her home." Jordan and John Hayes are now facing charges in connection with the death of their little girl, but what exactly happened is a mystery, as well as why police believe these two would allegedly mislead the search for their daughter. "This was an accident. You know, the way the media might portray it, the way the newspapers could portray it, or the rate of optimism what it was." I'll show you what was said in court and what has us believing that more may be going on with this story. We're on the case presented by Lawn Crime. I'm Chris Stewart. Well, we've been keeping a pretty close eye on this story because it just feels like something's about to break. It feels like there's more going on. We do not know sailor Hayes' official cause of death at this point. Her initial autopsy was released on Friday of last week, and we did learn that she had a build-up of fluid in her lungs, but that's really it. More testing is expected, including a toxicology test. "This will be directed to the defendants. Can I have your full names for the record please?" John Herbert Hayes, the third. "You're the goal Hayes." Meanwhile, here are sailors' parents making their first court appearances in South Carolina over the weekend, and here are their new mug shots. This is from when they were booked in the Georgetown County South Carolina jail. Now, both of them, Jordan and John Hayes, are facing charges of placing a child at risk or willfully abandoning a child. They were arrested in Tennessee a couple days after sailors' body was found, and they were brought back to South Carolina where this case began. Now, the bond hearing for Jordan and John Hayes, it got emotional and I'll show you that. It also just had some very interesting moments if you've been following this case. Before you get to that bond hearing, I want to get you up to speed on what else we know at this point. "I need help, my little four-year-old five-year-old girl. She's very autistic. Just escaped. I'm at test. She's took off. I need help find her. Please. As soon as possible. I don't see her anywhere." That is the voice of John Hayes just before noon on Sunday, August 30th. He is sailors' dad and he called 911 because he claimed that his five-year-old daughter ran off. Sailor Hayes was nonverbal and she was autistic. The family was vacationing on Polly's Island, South Carolina. It's somewhat near Murdle Beach, big vacation spot. Family was traveling from six and a half hours away in Bristol, Virginia. The entire 911 call that we have from John Hayes, it's a little more than four and a half minutes. I'm going to play some parts for you, including this moment, where Sailor's mom, Jordan Hayes, she has heard in the background of this call. Listen to this. "Okay. I need to look for it. I can't give you one." "I need to go to the water." "Yeah, I need to go look at the water. I've got to look around, ma'am. I'm going to be this respectful. I got to find her." So on this call, John tells the dispatcher that they were getting ready to go to the beach. Sailor was in her bathing suit. She was in a car seat. She was strapped into that car seat. And John said he then went inside to grab a juice for sailor and when he came out, she was gone. Now, the rental that this family was staying in, it's about six miles inland from the ocean, but there was a big river behind where they were staying. Sailor's mom, let's talk about her, Jordan Hayes, she posted a lot on social media about family as well as the challenges that Sailor faced. And in one video that she posted on TikTok, we see Sailor playing in like a water slide in the backyard and she points out that her daughter has a love for water, which is a, you know, it's possibly a very sad case of foreshadowing based on what we know at this point. So John calls August 30th on Sunday. Then for a little less than 24 hours, it was in all hands on deck search by the Georgetown County Sheriff's Office. The next day, Monday, August 30th, the sheriff announced that they had found little Sailor's body. It was in the water and it was in an area that they had searched previously. The next day, this story though took a turn from not just being tragic and it certainly is that no matter what, but it became a criminal case because Jordan and John were arrested. Now, we have the arrest warns that accused the couple of allegedly misleading investigators as they were trying to find their daughter. One reason law enforcement allegedly believes that this couple misled them. It has to do with this tracker that we've talked about before that Sailor was wearing. It's through a nonprofit called Project Life Saver and Sailor was fitted for this tracker back in 2024 at home in Virginia. So this tracker, in a lot of ways, think of it like what someone wears when they're out on GPS monitoring. It's kind of something that law enforcement, you know, comes in. They make sure that they have it on and if someone goes missing and in this case, you know, a young girl who could have autism. Maybe it's an older person who has dementia. There's a frequency that comes from the tracker. So if they go missing, law enforcement's called and they have a device that helps them find that tracker. Now, from what we understand, Sailors had this tracker for the last couple of years and police alleged that Jordan and John told them that Sailor had that device on. But the device wasn't in South Carolina. Sailor wasn't wearing it because law enforcement found it in a vehicle back at the couple's home in Bristol, Virginia. Now, we did notice one thing and going through Jordan's TikTok and you can see Sailor in that video where she talks about water and you look at her ankle and it appears that she has that device on. Now, deputies on top of just the part related to Project Life Saber and this tracking device that Sailor didn't have on deputies also accused the couple of pointing investigators away from where they would eventually find Sailor's body. Now, before we get to that bond hearing, I also want to break down what we learned from Sailor's autopsy which came out late last week. The corner said that Sailor was wearing a bathing suit and she had a strap on her ankle and the corner also reported that there were no external signs of trauma. Now, this is per WIFF television. They say that Sailor had a pulmonary edema which is a term for a build up of fluid in her lungs that can restrict air flow. The manner of her death though at this point remains unknown and we may have to wait weeks until we learn that piece of information because a full report is not expected for eight to ten weeks. So now that you know that, let's talk about this bond hearing. So, Jordan and John Hayes end up getting arrested in Tennessee just about an hour south of Bristol, Virginia and they're extradited back to South Carolina and they appear before a judge on Saturday. My name is Judge Steve Pop. I'm a magistrate here in Georgetown County and the purpose of this hearing is to set your bond. It's not to determine your guilt or innocence in these matters. Do you all understand that? Okay, each of you have been charged with unlawful place in a child at risk or harm or willfully abandon a child? You do have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you. You have obviously the right to be represented by an attorney. If at some point you cannot afford your attorney, you can apply for the services of the public defender. This is per WPDE television. Jordan and John, they appeared at the same time, but an interesting part of it is it only appears that John has an attorney. At this time, Mr. McCoy, is there anything that you would like to say to the court? Yes, sir. I mean, please, court, just briefly. As of this moment, that's right. Associates is only being, we've only been in contact with represent John. We're not sure what the situational being between the two of them has. Everything is just now started out. So, for all intents and purposes, I'll just address John, although a lot of what I'm going to say has to deal with both of them. But just consider her unrepresented at this moment, Judge. John is 71 years old. He lives in Bristol, Virginia. He went to some college and he's an investment property. That's basically what he does for a living. He invests in properties and fixes them up and things like that. He's had a long life filled with other jobs and other careers as he's 71 years old. But for right now, that's what he primarily focuses on. They were in town visiting a close friend of John's. Who was actually at the house that day, as well. And your honor as far as record goes. Everything that I've talked to John about has been deferred or deferred intervention was taken place on many of the stuff that took place with both of them. But especially with John, you won't see much on his record, especially by way of anything violent. They're not a flag risk, judge. They were not told that they couldn't leave. When they encountered the police in another state, they went voluntarily. They volunteered to be extra-guided back to this area. As John's attorney is speaking, Jordan interjects asking about holding sailors funeral. They want to fight these charges. They've gone through something horrific. We believe that they're entitled to a reasonable bond, judge. At this moment, they're charged with unlawful neglect of a child, abandoning a child, essentially taking their eye off a child. That's what they're charged with. As far as danger of community goes, John is particularly as one of the focused on, he has no charge. where he's ever been a danger to, say, anybody in the community, other than the allegations that they took place with him and his wife with her kid. But in that situation, John called CPS and called him to the scene. I mean, these are people who are hiding anything or individuals who are going to run or be a danger to the community judge. So we just respectfully request a decent bond that they can get out on them. And they, of course, they have a funeral coming up, they'd like to get out to plan that deal with the situation 'cause it is a tragedy on. - So it's unclear specifically what the attorney's talking about when it comes to criminal history. But we do know that as we speak, Jordan is facing child abuse charges from another case earlier this year. Online records show that Jordan was arrested on February 17th in Virginia. And there's an entry that lists charge of cruelty, injured, child labor. Now, there's another entry there that says abuse of a child disregard life, both are felonies, both entries are still active. And according to local media outlet WCYB television, the charges are in connection with an incident allegedly involving a juvenile male. So not sale or haze. One of the entries shows a final preliminary hearing was held on August 14th. But the other list, the status is dispossitional. So it is possible that that part of the case has been settled. We are still working to get the documents and working to get the information to understand what was going on. Now, we also looked up John Hayes because you hear in the bond hearing, these attorneys talk about his criminal history saying not a lot is there, especially when it comes to having a violent criminal history. So we looked his name up in Virginia as well. And we did find that John Hayes was arrested in July of 2023 on a child abuse charge for disregarding life. Same first name, same middle name, same last name of a person who lives in Bristol, Virginia. Now, we don't know the details of that case yet, either, but it does appear the charge was dismissed in February of this year. Now, at this bond hearing in South Carolina related to the sale or haze case, Jordan Hayes ends up being emotional again, and she speaks up again, watch this. - I see Mr. Axe Roth stand up behind you. Is there anything that he wishes to say out that I'll give all the time he needs? - Your Honor, I just confirm with Mr. McCoy, I know, I know. We wanted to get out. I was going to support for PR bond on the court probably. It has such a charge record of financing. So funeral will coming up. They waive the extra edition. They're maintained there in a sense. Like, through all this proceeding, we will represent John on this, like contacted Mr. Hayes with a seat public from the last night and followed him, we would come down here and do and move to Sen John. I don't want to make a conflict between the parties. There might be no conflict between the parties. But at this point, for legal purposes representing John, I would ask the court for the PR bond to let him get out. For people, they don't have much means. And they want to stand up. This was an accident. You know, the way the media wants to portray it with the way the newspapers were portrayed or the radio, on this and what it was. It was an accident. And we went before, I understand that. We came down here for John this morning because they have a funeral upon a come up and they want to get back to their family. I would think the court has John's criminal record of financing. We don't have it. We're according to John. We don't think they're danger. We don't think he's a danger. We would ask the court to actually release them. I would ask for a PR bond. The court has seen maybe a reasonable surety bond. But we will represent him full. We will represent John. He's the third full on this bill. So you can see this attorney is very clear that they are representing John Hayes and they're not representing Jordan Hayes. He also says what happened to sailor was an accident. This is what the judge said very good. Well, respectfully, there's no way on this earth that I'm going to grant a PR bond on this tax run that that's not going to happen on my watch. All right, due to the agree to nature of these charges and the past criminal history, which I would advise the attorneys to look into. Like I have this morning, your bond is denied for both individuals. Have a better day. Thank you. Thanks, Judge. Whew. All right. That way. Quote, there is no way on this earth that I am going to grant a PR bond. Strong words from this judge, as he denies bond for Jordan and John. So they're going to remain in the Georgetown County, South Carolina, jail, as this case moves forward, the judge set their next court appearances for November 19th. Join us now to talk a little bit more about this, specifically the autopsy for sailor Hayes is Dr. Neda Rutherford corner for Richland County, South Carolina, which is of course different from Georgetown County and great to have you on here for your expertise in these cases. So pulmonary edema. That is what according to what's been put out there, sailor Hayes had at the time of her death. What does that tell you? Well, it doesn't really tell us much. Pulmonary edema can be an agonal change, meaning the process that is happening as someone is dying. Now, can it be indicative of many other things? Yes. We see pulmonary edema in drug overdoses or where a toxin is in the body. We can see this from someone who has severe heart failure, which we wouldn't suspect a five-year-old of having unless she was born with some congenital condition, which has not been told to us at this time. But it can be also seen in drowning. And so I think it's really important to note here that this child was found body of water very close by in the water. They were supposedly going swimming or on their way to the waterway to have this fun time for the summer. And all of a sudden, she's missing. And when they find her body, they discover pulmonary edema. So while it is not diagnostic of anything, it can be indicative of multiple things with drowning being one of them. Because one of my questions was, for her cause of death, this will be undetermined at this point. And if she is so sad to think about this five-year-old, if she ends up going to the water, she ends up drowning, typically in cases like this, how often is you can determine the cause of death very quickly to be something like drowning? Well, I think in an investigation like this, you have to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together. And this is why I think it's really important, Chris, for us to not speculate too much before we get all of the pieces of the puzzle. So the toxicology is going to be very important. Was there anything in her system that could have made her sleepy, that could have made her disoriented? How did she get away from adult supervision to be able to be near this body of water? The circumstances surrounding her disappearance and her being reported missing are going to be so vital to this autopsy and to the investigation. We're going to have to bridge those two things together in order to get a manner of death, which I want to remind all of our folks out there, that manner of death is different than cause of death. And they have not specifically stated that pulmonary edema is her cause of death. They have stated that this was an autopsy finding. And I think it's very clear to me that they don't have a cause of death or the medical reason why she died yet, which is why they cannot give you a manner of death. And there are only five manners to choose from. You have natural accidental suicide, homicide and undetermined. And right now they have it in that undetermined category because they don't have all of the pieces of the puzzle. And more specifically, when it's fluid in the body, like the term fluid, like what made that mean? Because in some way you could say like, is this the water that she was found in? Is the fluid in her body? Or is it something else, you know, whatever was in her system at the time? Like typically what is kind of the, you know, the definition of fluid in your world? - So when I see this again, that pulmonary edema, it means that you have fluid in the lungs, which was very clearly stated in one of the reports that I read. So they acknowledged that the lungs were heavy and wet. Let me explain to you what that means to, for non medical folks, okay? So a child at about the age of five, their lungs, total combined lung weight, should be about 300 grams. So if you think about a weight, 300 grams, right? But if they're waterlogged, I would be interested to see how much those lungs weight at autopsy to see if they were over 1000 grams or maybe 2000 grams, how heavy were the lungs? And in the autopsy space, we would say the lungs were heavy and wet, meaning that they were larger and more fluid field than what we would expect for a child of that size and that body length and for her growth chart, this is what we're seeing. So if we have heavy wet lungs, like we have a pulmonary edema, then we can say that this body was filled with fluid. But then there are some other things that we're going to look for in terms of autopsy. Was the body waterlogged in any way? What things break down faster? So did this child have evidence of being waterlogged? And that's going to be very important. So was her skin after about 24 hours of being in the water, you will still have some damage related to being waterlogged. So did she have those things? Or was her body placed there? Was this the primary scene? Or is this the secondary scene? So there are going to be so many things that they need to do from an investigative standpoint to give us more details so that the autopsy findings and the investigation can be matched up to give us a manner of death. As I believe the timeline is, the 911 call came in before noon on August 30th, which is, you know, where it's believed that she, you know, ends up getting out, according to her dad, on the 911 call, she was strapped into a car seat, undoes the car seat, and then, you know, maybe she goes to this body of water, there was a river behind the rental house where they were staying, I guess it's a friend's house, while they were, while they were on the island for vacation, and then her body is found, say, around 9.30, the next day, or at least that's when the sheriff sheriff announced it. Are you able to determine, I guess, the timeline, like using that, like, that body is waterlogged, how long a body was in the water for, like, how specific can it get to know whether or not the entire time that she was in this body of water, and it just wasn't until, you know, a diver, whoever it was, was able to locate her body. Well, one, you're going to be able to see certain things, so, like, if this, if this was a drowning, is she, does she have water in her stomach? Does she have, is her, is her pulmonary edema related to water, or is it just the, again, the agonal change that happens when someone is dying? Because you can get pulmonary edema from both things, right? Did she have water in her airways? Did she have water in her esophagus? Did she, again, did she have water in her stomach? Was she swallowing water? What other things were in her mouth, in her hair, on her body? Was there any bug activity, your fish activity? Again, depending on what species are, are in that area, was anything on her, in her, around her, that could give us more clues to that, right? So, if I'm in a rushing body of water, could my body have moved from one place to the next? Again, you're going to see some changes with the skin, even in that short amount of time, it's not going to be this kind of fresh death that we think it is. We need more information. Pulmonary edema does not tell us much. The fact that they told us that there was no trauma to the body, doesn't mean that she didn't drown. A child can drown in a bathtub in an inch of water, given the right circumstances. So, I need them to give us more information, but yes, we would see evidence of the body being waterlogged even after that time. You brought just something up interesting, just kind of like a side comment about like the work that like a corner in a medical examiner does, like the idea of species that are in a particular area. If she was found in like a fresh body of water as opposed to salt water, not just the impact that that type of water can have, but you have to know the type of fish that might be in this particular area and like the impact it has, just very interesting for you know the work that you do, that a lot of us often take for granted and we'll see the autopsy results and that's it, but then you know all the things kind of go into figuring out what exactly happened to a person. I know it's going to be eight to ten weeks until more information comes out more tests to run. What typically happens in that period of time? Like what are the specific tests that are going to be run at this point over this period until you know some sort of final report comes out that hopefully will determine more information about what happened. So the toxicology is definitely going to be one of the first things that they're going to send out. They want to know what drugs, chemical substances that are in this child's body to determine if there was anything that could have led her to walk away to was she receiving her medications. Let's say she was prescribed something that maybe helped with her behavior was she receiving those medications. So sometimes it's not just related to what caused the dead. Sometimes it's a sign that either parents were giving medication or withholding medication which can sometimes be seen as like medical neglect and not giving the child what they need. And so this toxicology is going to give us at least a piece of this puzzle as they continue the investigation. Now the other part to this is saying okay are there any cameras in the area? So that for Rinsic digital footprint that that people leave behind like where was the father in relation to the body or their mom in relation to the body. What cell phone towers may have been if they believe that this was a secondary scene was this was the cell phone picking someplace else and then all of a sudden it's there or did it never leave like there's so many digital things that can also happen. And again that's going to be on the law enforcement side. But from the coroner's perspective they are going to be looking at every single piece of evidence that was around that body. What clothing was she seen in? Is there any information in the clothing where their tears were were anything was anything on that bathing suit that could lead them to someplace else? If you know a particular if there's a and this is just me again just giving an example. But if there's a pine cone in her bathing suit but there are no pine cone trees in that area that could mean that her body was moved. So again looking at those subtle things that maybe no one else thinks to look at is going to be so important in this case because I would like to know how this child who is nonverbal autistic who is a part of a program designed to prevent this type of death from happening. I would want to know how this child was not kept safe. Yeah and it's a massive question and then just the arrest warrants from law enforcement in Georgetown County. You know it's you know maybe it's the digital evidence you know what what is the bar there when it comes to determining you know not just you know they were trying to be helpful with an investigation and they they happen to point law enforcement just out of the goodness of their heart like hey we think that she may have gone in this direction but what was it that had detectives believing that this was a criminal act and they've been charged with that when it comes to the eight to ten week time frame and we see that a lot with toxicology tests in cases where it's just this long way and a lot of times it feels like it's longer than just eight to ten weeks to be able to get more information what goes into that that wait time and why is it so long in so many places. Well one they they not only confirm the testing that they're doing but they want to reconfirm what they're doing so if they have something that shows positive in the blood then they're going to want to test and retest and usually it's about a triple check that they do to make sure that what they're seeing is actually present they want to make sure that if there are any thresholds that a particular lab can't meet so for example here in South Carolina we have the South Carolina law enforcement division they can't test for certain substances so those samples while they may be tested locally in state they may need to send them to a lab such as NMS that does more for deeper forensic testing or they have a lower threshold amount or reporting amount that may pick up on something that may be small we use this a lot for child fatalities in Richland County because the threshold is different so where slid may have a reporting minimal limit of like two NMS may have a reporting limit that may be one and so that's really important if you're looking at a toxicology and someone tests positive for fentanyl or some other substance that could be harmful to a child of that age so they may have to do several rounds of testing and oftentimes that's why testing takes so long now if the test are negative and they don't see anything then the results should come back much faster but that's one of the reasons why it takes so long and this is a child there must be a child fatality review this is a federal recommendation we do them locally I know here in Richland County we perform child fatality reviews sometimes we could have 9 to 10 cases at a time so not only will the manner of death be held off until that child fatality review can happen but they have to have all the pieces of the puzzle in order to perform that review so I really think that that 8 to 10 week time frame encompasses all of that and not just the toxicology testing and just the last part because as I was watching this bond hearing Jordan Hayes who is Sailor Hayes his mom she was very emotional she had said something about a funeral I don't know if their family members who are already planning some sort of memorial service or if she was if she was going to be granted bond like hold a memorial service like how much time do you have as a corner to gather as much information as you possibly can from human remains before a body would be given back to to families so they could end up you know doing some sort of memorial service and it no longer is in the custody of the county or the state well there really isn't a time frame if we are holding that body for evidence collection and we believe that the body may need to be assessed further or further testing may need to occur on that body then we will hold that body indefinitely until we get all of the information that we need from that body here in Richland County we will hold sometimes for 72 to 96 hours to make sure that we don't need anything else and then we'll release the body and in this case since both of the parents are incarcerated at this time they don't lose their parental rights their parental rights are not terminated just because they are accused of something they still have the right to disposition her remains so if they want to wait until they are out of jail and perform her services at that time the county would have the responsibility of storing her remains until that can happen we want to head a body in our custody for three years until the family members were able to disposition and it was a child abuse case yeah and and we'll see you know in this case where it goes from here of course they're innocent until proven guilty they have been denied bond we'll see what happens next a lot of questions about sailor haze and hopefully we'll get some answers sometime soon a doctor native rather for a corner for Richland County South Carolina always great to have your expertise some long crime. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much. That will do it for on the case, presented by Law & Crime. Subscribe to us on YouTube and Spotify and we're also streaming on Peacock. I'm Chris Stewart. We'll see you next time.