Baby Boy Horry remembered on eighth anniversary of his death

Roughly two dozen people gathered Monday at Hillcrest Cemetery for a memorial service marking the eighth anniversary of the death of an unknown infant boy and to memorialize Grace Carlson Santa Cruz, who died last year.

In an area marked by a white statue with the engraving “Baby Land” lies a headstone decorated with a Christmas tree and marked with the words “Baby Boy Horry.”

Santa Cruz’s headstone is also nearby. She drowned when her mother, Sarah Lane Toney, lost her in a creek on Nov. 3, 2015. Toney is charged with homicide by child abuse.

The unidentified body of Baby Boy Horry was less than a day old when utility workers found him inside a shopping bag in a ditch along Meadowbrook Road near Conway on Dec. 4, 2008.

“We do not know who he is or anything about him,” said Horry County Coroner Robert Edge.

Authorities have a DNA profile of the boy, and Edge said one reason for the memorial is in hopes that the coverage will “jog somebody’s memory” and result in helpful information.

“We’re hoping that maybe somebody will see this every year and maybe they’ll remember something or maybe it will touch their heart and they’ll come forward and bring some information as to who the mother and the dad are,” Edge said.

But there’s another reason the ceremony is held every year.

“Our purpose here is to educate people that there are other options,” said Wayne Brown, interim pastor at First Baptist Church in North Myrtle Beach. “There are resources, there are churches, there are rescue squads, fire stations, police stations that would take the baby with no questions asked, and we could maybe find adoptive families who are longing for children.”

Brown has presided over the memorial services since it began in 2008.

“The coroner’s office has called me and I’ve been willing and honored to do it, although I’ve said other people could come and help but they’ve called us and we were here from Day 1,” he said.

Brown asked for forgiveness for the parents who abandoned the infant.

He said he didn’t know the circumstances behind Santa Cruz’s mother but hoped that Baby Boy Horry’s parents had better intentions.

“Baby Horry was found on a walking trail and it was like she was hoping someone would find the baby and take care of him,” Brown said. “And she put him in a shopping bag with a baby blue blanket to try and keep him warm.”

Parents can “knock on the door and run” if need be, said Edge.

“They’ll take the baby in and help find a home for it through department of social services,” he said. “So there are legal remedies to this where there’s no penalties to somebody who’s not ready to be a mother or a dad.”

This story was originally published December 5, 2016 at 3:47 PM with the headline "Baby Boy Horry remembered on eighth anniversary of his death."