By Mike McCombs
A 2-year-old boy was found dead in the swimming pool Saturday afternoon at a Beaufort hotel.
Just before 4 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 12, an employee of the Country Inn & Suites at 2450 Boundary Street called police to report a potential case of child neglect in regards to a 5-year-old girl wandering the premises unaccompanied.
When City of Beaufort Police officers arrived, according to Lt. Charles Raley, they searched the area in an effort to locate the child’s parents. In the process, they found the boy at the bottom of the pool. They pulled the boy from the water but were unable to resuscitate him.
Raley said the children were siblings.
Eventually, officers located the children’s mother in a hotel room with a man and a third child, an infant.
“The mother was in the hotel room,” Raley said. “We’re not certain which child or children belonged to the man in the room as of right now.”
Raley said S.C. Department of Social Services (DSS) was contacted, and DSS removed the 5-year-old and the infant from the immediate custody of the parent.
No charges have been filed at this time, Raley said, and the case remains under investigation.
An autopsy is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Mike McCombs is the Editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com.
