The married couple arrested this week in connection with the death of their 5-year-old nonverbal daughter appeared in court Thursday and agreed to be extradited to South Carolina.
John Herb Hayes III, 70, and Geordyn Nichole Hayes, 31, of Bristol, Virginia, appeared in Carter County General Sessions Court in Tennessee on Thursday morning, days after their daughter, Saylor Hayes, was found dead. The couple both waived their rights to extradition and will be moved to South Carolina within the next 10 days.
Saylor’s body was recovered Monday from the water near Hagley Landing, a boat ramp leading to the Waccamaw River in the small town of Pawleys Island, South Carolina. Hours later, her parents were arrested in Carter County, Tennessee — more than 350 miles away — and charged with unlawfully placing a child at risk or willfully abandoning a child.
The couple have been held at the Carter County Detention Center in Tennessee without bond pending extradition to South Carolina, where they will face the criminal charges. The Hayeses also both waived their rights to hire an attorney as they await extradition.
The handcuffed couple appeared in court Thursday in striped red and pink jumpsuits. They did not speak to each other, and they appeared to make eye contact only briefly as authorities led them out of the courtroom.
Saylor was found dead Monday following an extensive search involving hundreds of people and several law enforcement agencies. Her mother first reported her missing Sunday. Geordyn Hayes told authorities that Saylor wandered off from a rental home in Hagley Estates in Pawleys Island and was last seen wearing her swimsuit.
But arrest affidavits accuse the parents of diverting authorities away from the South Carolina waterways during the search.
According to the affidavits, the Hayeses directed investigators to search for their daughter’s Project Lifesaver monitoring device — a wearable tracker designed to help locate missing people with cognitive impairments — even though they knew she had not been wearing it.
“Saylor was a vulnerable five-year-old child who depended upon the adults responsible for her care and protection,” Georgetown County Sheriff Carter Weaver said in a statement this week. “She deserved to be safe. She deserved to be protected.”
It is not the first time the couple has faced accusations involving children. In 2023, John Herb Hayes was arrested and charged with two Class 6 felony counts of child abuse/disregard for life stemming from an alleged July 3 incident.
Hayes entered Alford pleas and received a deferred disposition with two years of supervised probation. The charges were dismissed this year, and court records indicate he was released from probation.
Social media accounts that belong to the couple appear to indicate they have two more young children. Law enforcement agencies in Tennessee and Virginia declined to comment on the other children’s whereabouts.
