Six-year-old Faye Swetlik was found dead on Thursday, three days after she vanished from her front yard in Cayce, South Carolina.
In a Thursday press conference, Chief Byron Snellgrove of the Cayce Department of Public Safety said her body was found somewhere in the Churchill Heights neighborhood where she lived.
Officials are now treating the case “as a homicide,” but Snellgrove said no arrests have been made. No other details about Swetlik’s death were shared.
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“It is with extremely heavy hearts that we are announcing that we have found the body, that the coroner has identified as Faye Marie Swetlik,” Snellgrove said, choking up as he broke the news.
Swetlik was last seen by her family at 3:45 p.m. Monday, when she was playing in her front yard after school. Her family reported her missing at around 5 p.m. on Wednesday, and officials released surveillance video of Swetlik getting off the school bus on Monday, minutes before she went missing.
In addition to finding Swetlik’s body, Snellgrove said a body of a male was also found in the neighborhood, but it remains unclear if the two cases are related. No other details about the man’s body were released, but Snellgrove said there was no danger to the community at this time.
Authorities had been searching Swetlik’s neighborhood since Monday night, talking to neighbors and locking down the area. On Tuesday, officials said there were no indications that Swetlik was abducted, and they were considering the possibility that she walked off and fell somewhere.
