A four-year-old girl who vanished from her family's home in the Marsh Lane area of Jenkinsville, South Carolina, wearing nothing but a pull-up, was found safe Monday evening after a search that pulled in more than 40 emergency responders. The girl, identified by WIS-TV as Opel Hawkins, is autistic and nonverbal, and authorities had warned she might not respond even if someone called out her name.
The Fairfield County Sheriff's Office announced the child's safe recovery in a Facebook post Monday evening, confirming that the missing four-year-old girl had been found. According to WIS-TV, Hawkins was found on a power line, curled up with her bottle and blanket still with her.
She had reportedly walked away from her home at the end of Marsh Lane, according to the sheriff's office, and was last seen shortly after 3:30 p.m., per WACH. That detail set off an urgent, hours-long hunt across the rural Jenkinsville area before she was located safe.
A Multi-Agency Hunt With Dogs and a Helicopter
The search effort drew in the Fairfield County Sheriff's Office, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, Fairfield County EMS and Fairfield Rescue, according to WYFF. The station reported that more than 40 emergency responders and search personnel were on scene at the height of the search, backed by SLED bloodhounds tracking the child's path on the ground and a helicopter scanning from above.
A command center was even set up at The Rock Church near the search scene, the station's report noted, as crews coordinated the response across the wooded, rural stretch of Fairfield County. Deputies had asked residents near Marsh Lane to check their yards, outbuildings, sheds, garages, vehicles, porches, wooded areas, ponds, creeks and other bodies of water for any sign of the girl.
Public Asked to Help, Then Stand Down
Before Hawkins was found, the sheriff's office urged anyone who spotted a child matching her description to call 911 immediately, and asked the public to share the original post to widen the search's reach. Officials also instructed bystanders not to enter or interfere with the active search area or the search teams working it.
With the child located safe, the sheriff's office is continuing to ask anyone with information to call 911. The rapid mobilization of state and local agencies, and the extensive ground and air search that followed, underscored just how seriously authorities treated the report of a vulnerable, nonverbal child missing from home.
