Baby Boy Horry father seeks closure. Mother should serve time for baby’s death, he says.

Ronald Woodham III wasn’t feeling well the day Horry County investigators knocked on his door three years ago.

He had just gotten back from a visit with his mother a few days prior.

Investigators began to ask him about his girlfriends in college.

“(Investigators) wanted to know what stores (his girlfriends) shopped at, the things they would wear,” Woodham said April 3 from his Bennettsville home.

Woodham, who describes himself as an organized person, doesn’t like to be surprised. Finally, he was told why investigators were there.

A DNA forensic test matched him as the father of a newborn child who was found dead in 2008. The child was named Baby Boy Horry by officials.

Five workers from Horry Electric found the newborn in a Bath and Body works bag inside a shoebox off Meadowbrook Road, a few miles outside of Coastal Carolina University, where Woodham, now 35, graduated.

Officials also identified the mother, Jennifer Sahr, through DNA forensic testing. In March 2020, Sahr was arrested.

Sahr pleaded guilty in September to voluntary manslaughter. She was originally charged with homicide by child abuse.

Her guilty plea came with the condition that she plead guilty under North Carolina v. Alford, a Supreme Court case that establishes a defendant’s ability to plead guilty while maintaining innocence of the charges.

Sahr has yet to be sentenced for the death. Instead, she has been out on house arrest.

Seeking closure, Woodham shares story in exclusive interview

With his parents and his fiance sitting in on the interview, Woodham, who shared his story in an exclusive interview with the Sun News, said he felt like he has been given the runaround by investigators and attorneys.

He is now seeking closure and wants justice for Baby Boy Horry. He says for every year Sahr didn’t come forward, she should serve time. It’s been 15 years since the baby’s death.

Apology given, closure didn’t come

Woodham was in court the day of Sahr’s hearing — although he had less than two days notice about it. It was not enough time to write what he wanted in an impact character witness statement, he said.

Before the hearing, Woodham met with Sahr as part of an agreement.

When he walked into the office, Sahr’s attorney, Morgan Martin, showed him an envelope full of photos of Sahr’s children, who were age 2 and 5 at the time.

“To me, it seemed manipulative in some sense,” Woodham said.

The meeting was supposed to offer closure for Woodham. It was also supposed to be private, Woodham said, but the content of that meeting would later be brought up in the hearing by the defense.

That closure would likely not come from the courtroom, Woodham said, but rather by speaking out and telling his story.

Sahr apologized to Woodham during the meeting, adding that she had no idea she was pregnant and couldn’t remember anything about that day, Woodham said.

Woodham said he doesn’t believe Sahr’s apology was sincere.

Morgan Martin, representing Sahr, reiterated those points in court. Martin could not be reached for comment when The Sun News called on April 7.

‘I truly feel that he was alive and that he suffered’

Woodham said what bothers him the most is thinking about the baby freezing to death.

He said sometimes he sits outside his work after a shift with only a T-shirt on and it’s cold.

“I truly feel that he was alive and that he suffered,” he said.

When media initially began reporting on the case that had gone unsolved for 12 years, the soft-spoken Woodham didn’t want to be in the public eye.

Sahr and Woodham met in college, and were decent friends, Woodham said. They had a one-night stand.

If he had known at the time, Woodham said he would’ve tried to be a father and make it work out.

Now, the soon to be stepfather to three said it’s a matter of telling his side of the story, and being a voice for Baby Boy Horry.

His father, Ronald Woodham II, described finding out about his would-be grandson as a scene from the Twilight Zone.

“It was a blur,” he said.

From 30 years to no time at all

When investigators found Sahr through forensic DNA testing, she told them she “was the monster.”

At the hearing, Judge Paul Burch ordered a pre-sentence investigation to be conducted by the South Carolina Department of Probation, parole and pardon.

It’s uncommon, but well within the rights of a judge to order it, Horry County Solicitor Jimmy Richardson said. It boils down to the fact that prosecution was asking for the upper two-thirds of the sentence — around 20 to 30 years, and defense was asking for basically nothing, Richardson explained.

That pre-sentence investigation was completed earlier this year. What remains is her sentencing, which could be anything between 30 years to no time served at all.

Judge Burch is scheduled to be back in Horry County the week of June 12, according to the South Carolina courts website. The Sun News was unable to reach him for a comment on April 3.

For a decade, memorial remembered ‘Baby Horry’ without a family. That changed this year.

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