A 12-year-old girl has been missing from the Woodruff area of Spartanburg County since Tuesday afternoon, and deputies are asking the public for help finding her. Riley Berryhill, a seventh-grader at Woodruff Middle School, was last seen around 4 p.m. Tuesday, September 8, near the intersection of Arnold Road and Highway 101, wearing a pink and white striped shirt, blue jeans, brown Nike Dunks and a pink backpack.
The Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office has asked anyone who sees Berryhill or knows her whereabouts to call 911 immediately, as reported by WYFF. Investigator Brandon Letterman is leading the case and can also be reached directly at [email protected], according to the station's report. Community missing-person advisories circulating Wednesday, including posts shared by journalist Cody Alcorn, added that Berryhill was last seen wearing the same brown Nike Dunks, pink backpack and striped shirt described by deputies.
A Sprawling District, A Rural Search Zone
Woodruff Middle School falls under Spartanburg County School District Four, which covers the largest geographic footprint of the county's seven school districts, stretching into rural communities toward Greenville, Laurens and Union counties, per Spartanburg County School District Four. The Arnold Road and Highway 101 intersection where Berryhill was last seen sits along a rural and commercial corridor in southern Spartanburg County. That kind of setting can complicate search efforts spanning a wide area.
No Waiting Period, But No Automatic Amber Alert
South Carolina law bars state and local law enforcement agencies from imposing any mandatory waiting period before accepting and investigating a report of a missing or runaway child, a protection Hoodline has previously detailed. That means deputies were required to act on Berryhill's case without delay. Still, a statewide AMBER Alert can only be activated once law enforcement confirms a child under 18 has actually been abducted, the child is in imminent danger of bodily harm or death, enough descriptive information exists to broadcast, other explanations have been reasonably excluded, and the child has been entered into the National Crime Information Center, per guidelines cited by the Greenville Journal. That threshold explains why Berryhill's case has so far generated local bulletins and public appeals rather than a statewide emergency broadcast.
How County Resources Typically Respond
County resources may be involved in missing-person search-and-rescue operations. The county's response to missing-person cases may extend beyond the initial search, but the available material does not identify a specific unit or named cases.
SLED's Missing Persons Information Center assists local agencies in missing-person cases, per the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Nationally, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children supported 32,167 missing child cases in 2025 and achieved a 90 percent overall case resolution rate, with 92 percent of those cases involving runaway juveniles, according to the organization.
Recent History of Multi-Agency Searches in the County
Spartanburg County has coordinated large-scale searches before. In March, county authorities launched a multi-agency response and statewide AMBER Alert that recovered two missing children after license-plate detection cameras tracked a suspect vehicle across state lines into Georgia, the Post and Courier reported. That case remains a reference point for how quickly circumstances can shift once verified evidence of abduction emerges, though no such determination has been made in Berryhill's case. For now, deputies are relying on the public to help fill in what happened after 4 p.m. Sunday near Arnold Road and Highway 101, and anyone with information is urged to dial 911.
