Year after Faye Swetlik was abducted, killed Cayce law enforcement still feels effects

Law enforcement officers involved in the search for Faye Swetlik a year ago and the investigation into her death are still feeling the effects.

“The disappearance and murder of Faye Marie Swetlik immediately became, and always will remain, incredibly personal for each of us,” Cayce Department of Public Safety Director Byron Snellgrove recently said. “And the loss of Faye was a shock to each of us because Cayce is a very safe community.”

The girl was reported missing Feb. 10, 2020. She was abducted and killed by Coty Taylor, a 30-year-old neighbor, the Cayce Department of Public Safety said. Taylor died by suicide, and his body was found shortly after Faye’s was discovered on the morning of Feb. 13. The Lexington County coroner said she was killed the same day she. was abducted.

Finding Faye

Although the days-long search for Faye included more than 300 first responders, it was Snellgrove who discovered her body shortly after it had been placed in a wooded area near her home in the Churchill Heights neighborhood.

“For me, after 65 hours of searching, the memory of finding the small body of Faye Marie Swetlik in a shallow grave on the morning of Feb. 13 will never, ever leave me,” Snellgrove said. “In the days, months, and now nearly a year after I see how this loss impacted our officers and our staff.

“This makes it almost impossible to imagine the worry and the horror that her family experienced at this time. Even as a father and grandfather I cannot fathom what the pain of their loss actually feels like.”

But that did not lessen the toll the investigation took on the department.

Ripple effect

For four days members of the Cayce Department of Public Safety, along with neighboring police and fire departments, as well as agents from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Department and FBI, joined together with the united goal of finding Faye.

There was a fallout after her body was found.

“We felt broken as we mourned her loss,” said Snellgrove, who declined to comment on either the investigation or the impact that discovering the body had on him. “It affected our department greatly.”

Perhaps the greatest impact was the loss of several veteran officers.

Five officers who were involved in the investigation retired within six months of the discovery of Faye’s body.

Snellgrove said an FBI agent told him that’s about how many officers the department would expect to lose based on what the federal agency sees in similar investigations conducted by other law enforcement agencies across the nation.

Snellgrove said he did not consider retiring because he still has “work to do.”

“There’s goals and things I still want to do,” Snellgrove said.

Snellgrove did say he is one of several officers in the department who underwent counseling since Faye’s death. There has been crisis intervention training, debriefings from SLED’s assistance program, and group counseling in addition to one-on-one sessions with therapists for officers who had a significant part in the investigation, according to Snellgrove.

He also keeps a portrait of Faye on the wall of his office. The portrait is beautiful, Snellgrove, and it’s a constant reminder of Faye, and keeps her in his heart.

Things to learn

In addition to the counseling, Snellgrove said his department is also trying to learn from the process. Cayce DPS officers have been sent to training sessions with the FBI, focused on child abduction cases.

Conversely, the FBI has shared the actions taken by Cayce DPS with other law enforcement agencies, according to Snellgrove.

He said when the FBI’s child abduction rapid deployment unit goes around the country to train different departments on how to react to an abduction or missing child, agents are using DPS’ handling of Faye’s case as an example of how things should be done.

All of the interaction and experience has benefited Cayce DPS, Snellgrove said.

“We are now much more sensitive to issues that come up with children,” Snellgrove said. “All of the other cases we’ve had where a child was involved have turned out very well.”

Unfinished business

Snellgrove has said that Taylor was the only one involved in Swetlik’s kidnapping and death, although the investigation is officially ongoing.

DPS previously said DNA evidence showed Faye was inside Taylor’s home, where a polka dot child’s boot and a soup ladle with freshly dug dirt were found. Faye was last seen wearing polka dot rain boots.

“The investigation is still open, and there’s a lot of reasons for it being open,” Snellgrove said.

He referenced nationwide issues that have had an impact on the Columbia area and Lexington County in 2020, including the coronavirus pandemic and protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, as factors that have slowed the process.

“The FBI was very involved in our cases. There’s still some evidence that’s out there we have not received reports on, it’s still being looked at. Once we receive that, we’ll close the case,” Snellgrove said. “I don’t think there’s anything out there that’s going to change any opinion of what we have on the case, or any outcome of the case. It’s just another box that we need to check.”

Snellgrove said more information could be made available in March, but declined to say what that could include, adding, “we can discuss what led to that at a later time.”

Supporting the family

The department is doing what it can to help Faye’s family, Snellgrove said, and it has a good bond and stays in touch.

“The family knows that if there’s anything that they need, anything that we can do for them to help in any situation, not just specifically about Faye, that they can call us anytime day or night,” Snellgrove said.