By Delayna Earley
The Island News
Autumn Hollis, mother of Emily Hollis, a Beaufort teen who was 12 years old at the time she was reported as a runaway earlier in 2025 when she was allegedly encouraged to leave her home and go to Florida with a 16-year-old boy, has filed a request for an internal review of those involved in her daughter’s case with The City of Beaufort and the City of Beaufort’s Police Department.
The case caused an uproar on social media with many Beaufort citizens upset at the 12-year-old being labeled as a runaway due to her age.
Upon delivering the packet requesting the internal review of the way that her daughter’s case was handled, she was informed by employees with the Beaufort Police Department that the people who would be conducting the internal review were the same people who were named in the review packet.
“Honestly, it was so people in the future would be able to use this to say, look, you’ve had issues with this,” Hollis said. “I just wanted a legit internal investigation.”
Worried that a review being conducted by the same people who she has listed as part of her complaint would not be fair and impartial, Hollis reached out to the city, asking for a party who is unrelated to take over the review of her case.
Hollis received a return email from Beaufort City Manager Scott Marshall telling her that to recuse everyone who had anything to do with her daughter’s case would be to recuse the whole city.
He also stated in the email that an internal review has already been conducted regarding her daughter’s case that did not turn up any evidence supporting “negligence, misconduct or violations of First Amendment or Civil Rights.”
According to Marshall, Beaufort Police claim to have found no specific or actionable allegations in her submission.
Hollis was advised to seek legal counsel and request an external investigation through the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED).
On the web page for the complaints made about City of Beaufort Police Department employees, a person wishing to make a formal complaint against an employee of the Beaufort Police Department must fill out a package of forms and return it within a 15-day window.
“The department’s internal affairs procedures are intended to be internally consistent, and realistic, and provide due process protection for the complainant and the accused,” their website reads. “The Administrative Division is responsible for conducting formal internal affairs investigations.”
Hollis tried to raise alarms with the City, because it does not seem OK for a person named in a complaint to be part of the review process in their own alleged wrongdoing.
“This raises substantial due process concerns and constitutes a clear conflict of interest under both ethical norms and the principals of administrative law,” Hollis said. “It is a fundamental tenet of an internal investigative process that no individual named in or materially connected to a complaint may participate in adjudicating or reviewing that same complaint.”
Hollis told The Island News that she is planning to meet with SLED to talk about next steps in regard to their filed complaint.
Delayna Earley,who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
Keywords: Delayna Earley, The Island News, Beaufort, SC, South Carolina, Port Royal, Ladys Island, Lowcountry
