ONE DEVICE. ONE STATEMENT. AND NOW, SERIOUS QUESTIONS.

The search for 5-year-old Saylor Hayes was massive.

Hundreds of residents, deputies and emergency personnel joined the effort after the nonverbal Virginia girl disappeared from a rental home in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, on Aug. 30.

But investigators say one crucial detail may have sent the search in the wrong direction.

According to arrest warrants, Saylor’s parents told authorities that she was wearing a Project Lifesaver tracking transmitter when she disappeared.

That information immediately became part of the search strategy.

Authorities contacted the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia, where Saylor had been enrolled in the Project Lifesaver program since 2024. Search teams were given the frequency assigned to her transmitter and began trying to locate the signal.

But there was a problem.

The transmitter was not with Saylor.

Virginia deputies later searched the family’s property and detected the transmitter inside a vehicle.

According to officials, the device had been removed before the family left Virginia for South Carolina. It was never in the area where Saylor disappeared.

That meant search teams could spend valuable time looking for a signal that could never come from Saylor.

And investigators allege there was another troubling detail.

According to the arrest warrants, Saylor’s parents encouraged authorities to use the tracking technology even though they allegedly knew she was not wearing the transmitter.

The warrants also allege that Saylor’s father directed search efforts away from a body of water approximately 15 meters from where she had last been seen.

The following morning, Saylor was found in nearby waters.

She had been missing for less than a day.

Saylor was a vulnerable child with severe nonverbal autism, a known tendency to wander and an attraction to water, according to investigators. Officials have emphasized that the Project Lifesaver technology itself was functioning properly — it simply led authorities to the transmitter sitting inside the vehicle in Virginia.

Washington County Sheriff Blake Andis said that had Saylor actually been wearing the transmitter, the technology could have helped search teams locate her much sooner.

Now, investigators are examining what happened during those critical first hours — including what Saylor’s parents told authorities, where searchers were directed, and why the tracking device was hundreds of miles away from the child it was supposed to protect.

John Herb Hayes III and Geordyn Nichole Hayes have been charged with unlawfully placing a child at risk and/or willfully abandoning their daughter.

The charges are allegations, not findings of guilt.

But one question remains at the center of the investigation:

Why was Saylor’s tracking device in Virginia — while searchers in South Carolina were being told to look for its signal?