Escaped Jasper County inmate linked to case
By Mike McCombs and Delayna Earley
The Island News
Four men and a woman, so far, have been arrested in connection with a human trafficking operation in Beaufort County.
South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) has arrested Alban Bryan, 63, of St. Helena Island; Guy Frank Talley III, 27, of Okatie; and William James Youmans, 34, of Beaufort. SLED confirmed the arrests in a news release on Thursday, June 13.
All three men were charged with Trafficking In Persons, Victim Under 18 Years of Age, and all three remain confined at the Beaufort County Detention Center.
A fourth man, 50-year-old Terrance Lamar Fields of Beaufort, was arrested by the Hardeeville City Police on Tuesday, June 11, according to court documents, and has has been charged with Trafficking in Persons, Victim Under 18 Years of Age — 1st offense, as well.
Fields was not listed in SLED’s Thursday news release, but the Hardeeville Police have confirmed his arrest is related to this same case.
And the Hardeeville Police Department announced Friday afternoon, via a Facebook post, that Sylvia Ilaife Meredith, 20, has been charged with Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor in connection with this case.
According to SLED’s news release, “the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, the Beaufort Police Department, the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office, the Hardeeville Police Department, the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations are working together on the active and ongoing investigation.”
Escaped inmate linked to case
These arrests come the same week as convicted sex offender Jaquan Duvall Barnes’ escape from the Jasper County Detention Center, and a source has confirmed to The Island News that Barnes is connected to this case.
Barnes was being held at the detention center following his March 5 arrest after he reportedly ran from police during a traffic stop.
He was found with an underage girl who had been reported missing from Beaufort County in the car with him.
The 28-year-old Port Royal resident was charged with Trafficking In Persons, Victim Under 18 Years of Age — 1st offense, and was also charged with possession for the marijuana that they found in his pocket.
Barnes, who has previously plead guilty in Beaufort County to two counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and has pending charges in Fulton County, Ga., for pimping a minor and trafficking a person for sexual servitude, has been missing since early in the week according to an alert that was posted publicly on Monday afternoon.
SLED quickly took over the investigation, but Barnes remains at large.
What allegedly happened?
A source first told The Island News on Tuesday, June 11, that law enforcement had conducted raids at several Beaufort County residences, including at least one in Mossy Oaks and one on St. Helena Island and made several arrests in relation to a human trafficking operation in Beaufort County.
Another source the following day told The Island News that several men, from Beaufort County and possibly other areas, used the promise of employment, even going as far as placing advertisements, to lure multiple under-aged females to a location or locations where they were instead drugged, plied with alcohol, held against their will and forced to have sex with paying customers.
During this time, at least some of the victims were held at a location on St. Helena Island.
It is unclear how law enforcement initially became aware of the trafficking operation.
Affadavits based on SLED’s investigation were presented by Special Agent Logan B. Fey no later than the first week in June to Beaufort Magistrate Richard Brooks. It’s unclear many warrants were issued, but at least seven signed by Brooks on Thursday, June 6 have been served.
The dates during which the trafficking took place, according to the warrants, were from February 1, 2024 through March 5, 2024.
The three men arrested in Beaufort County, as well as Fields, were all charged with Trafficking In Persons, Victim Under 18 Years of Age.
That charge states that the accused “did the following: recruit, entice, solicit, isolate, harbor, transport, provide, obtain, or so attempt, a victim, knowing that victim would be subjected to, or for the purposes of, sex trafficking, forced labor or services, for the purpose of performing commercial sex acts for compensation. That the defendant did know the victim was under the age of eighteen, and continued to subject the victim to a human sex trafficking scheme that he participated in.”
The warrants for Bryan, Talley and Youmans also allege that the accused arranged these acts from their residences. The Island News has not seen the warrant for Fields.
Bryan and Youmans were also charged with Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor. That charge states that “the defendant did know that the victim was under the age of eighteen and knew she was a reported missing person from her proper residence. The defendant did provide housing and narcotics to the minor victim while encouraging the sex trafficking of the minor victim.”
Talley faces two additional charges — Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, 2nd Degree; and Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, 3nd Degree.
The second degree charge accuses Talley of “distributing, transporting, distributing, receiving, selling, purchasing, exchanging, or soliciting materials that contain a virtual representation of a minor engaged in a sexual activity or appearing in a state of sexually explicit nudity … That the defendant through the use of his personally owned cellular device distributed the above referenced image.
The third degree charge accuses him of knowingly and willingly possessing “material that contained a visual representation of a minor engaged in a sexual activity or appearing in a state of sexually explicit nudity … That the defendant through the use of his personally owned cellular device received and possessed the above referenced image.”
Once again, those charges allege Talley arranged, gained or accessed those images at his residence.
Samuel Cyrus Blackmon, 37, of St. Helena Island was also charged with Simple Possession of Marijuana, as was Bryan. Blackmon was arrested by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Department.
Youmans (12:58 p.m.), Bryan (1:36 p.m.) and Talley (6:06 p.m.) were booked into the Beaufort County Detention Center on Tuesday, June 11, according to the Detention Center logs at https://www.beaufortcountysc.gov/detention-center/inmate-inquiry-system.html, but they did not show up on the site until Wednesday.
And according to a Jasper County Detention Center employee, Fields is incarcerated there, though he does not currently appear on the Jasper County Detention Center’s inmate logs on its website.
Meredith’s status is unclear. She does not appear on the Jasper County Detention Center’s inmate logs, and Hardeeville City Police have, as of yet, not responded to phone calls by The Island News.
The victims
Little is known publicly about the victims in this case except there are at least several. Sources have confirmed to The Island News there are multiple victims but can’t confirm if that means several or dozens.
From the same source, The Island News has also learned that at least one of the victims is Hispanic and at least one is as young as 14.
It’s unclear if a certain type of victim was targeted, in what kind of conditions the victims were held, were they held together or separately, and in what condition were they now?
Though SLED confirmed the investigation and the initial arrests, efforts to contact them by phone have been fruitless, and no response has come to emails with specific questions.
The Hardeeville City Police Department has shared new details in a Facebook post, but phone calls remain unanswered, thus far.
Silence among the participating law enforcement entities could indicate more arrests are likely.
When the investigation is complete, the case will be prosecuted by the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office Special Victims Prosecution Unit.
This story will be updated.
Mike McCombs is the Editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com.
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.
