SLED agent vows to "keep fighting" for youth

The disappearance and later death of 17-year-old Maylashia Hogg has weighed heavy on the hearts of the Barnwell community since early February.

The ongoing investigation by the S.C. Law Enforcement Division (SLED) has not released any public information as to the circumstances of how Hogg and her unborn baby girl, Londyn Charity, died – however, the community still has questions.

To help cushion grief and alleviate questions, even if just by a fraction, SLED Special Agent Katie McCallister shared a message to the youth on March 23 at the Barnwell County Sheriff’s Office’s second annual Community Worship Service.

Agent McCallister is assigned to Hogg’s case, and has spent ample time in Barnwell County investigating.

“I’ve had the opportunity to look at this community and see the hurt in their faces,” said Agent McCallister. “The pain in the eyes of people who knew her and loved her and her unborn child, baby Londyn, is heartbreaking. You can see it, you can feel it, it’s in the air, and you know how much they are hurting.”

Before McCallister began her speech, she explained she knew how the common spiel given to kids by parents and law enforcement grows old; “don’t do drugs, stay in school.”

“We’ve all heard it since we were little,” said Agent McCallister, who sought for a way to break out of this mold during her time at the podium.

She talked about the childhood lesson of being told not to touch a hot stove, and doing it anyway. A burned fingertip heals, the pain that goes with it subsides, and all that remains is a lesson to not touch hot things.

“We are able to recover and heal, but oftentimes I find that we don’t talk about the wounds that we can’t recover from and the wounds that we have a hard time healing,” said Agent McCallister. “Those wounds, in my experience, are the ones that violence left behind.”

“Violence leaves a specific kind of mark,” she said. “The wound that violence leaves is jagged, gaping, it will not heal right. When you sit down, wake up, move, you will feel that wound.”

The Barnwell County community is not just trying to heal the wound left by the death of Hogg and her unborn baby, but the wound left by the February disappearance of Michael Still.

“If those two souls weren’t enough, this community is also hurting because Michael Still is still missing,” said McCallister. “That's a lot of wounds for this whole community. This whole community is grieving, how do we heal that?”

Agent McCallister read from Romans 12:4-5, which shares a unifying message:

“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not have all the same function, so in Christ, we though many, form one body and each member belongs to all the others.”

McCallister explained how we are all connected, and when one person hurts everyone else feels it.

“Because we are one, if we lose even one person in this room right now, we all will feel it,” said Agent McCallister. “What if the person sitting next to you was not here? You would miss their presence. But what if they were suddenly and violently ripped away from you? That’s harder to heal.”

When violence takes the life of someone, it also takes aways their future potential.

“We don’t just lose you, we lose the gift that God gave you,” said Agent McCallister, who quoted

Romans 12:6, 7 stating everyone has different gifts they must build on. “Violence robs us of whatever gift you were given.”

Agent McCallister encouraged youth to find “your people.”

“Your people will not ask you to do anything to prove yourself. They will not lie to you or about you in order to save themselves. What your people will do for you is love you, support you, guide you, accept you, pray for you, no questions asked,” said McCallister.

She hoped they understood that every law enforcement officer in the room could be put in this category, and how they will “keep fighting with you and for you.”

“We were not meant to walk this Earth alone, we need each other. To lean on, to love on, to pray for each other,” she said.

SLED’s investigation into Hogg’s disappearance and death is still active and ongoing. Anyone with information regarding this case can call the specifically designated tipline: (803) 896-0281.