Mystery in a cornfield: What was left behind when woman died after leaving Myrtle Beach
Charred-black ears of corn lie in and around the ditch like birds fallen from the sky.
The fire left behind hard things — a scorched Toyota emblem, pebbles of shattered glass, tire scraps and heaps of incinerated metal.
There are soft things, too — corn silk and burned pages of a book on dream analysis. The pages are still stuck together, scattered around the site of the fire in booklets, though the binding is gone.
Sentences are interrupted by the flames that tore through them: “Horseback-riding suggests a desire . . . slower pace of life. . . Falling or being thrown . . . suggests that you are worried . . . on too many responsibilities. . . hard to cope.”
The Florence County Sheriff’s Office said the car belonged to Sheridan Wahl, a 21-year-old college student from Tampa, Florida, who was last seen 55 miles east — in Myrtle Beach.
The license plate was missing and the car’s VIN number could not be read, authorities said.
The mystery surrounding her death remains a week after her body was found between small towns in rural South Carolina. Few details have been provided by authorities, and more questions abound than answers.
Where Wahl’s final moments took place
Hannah-Salem-Friendfield Fire Station One is a three-bay structure in Pamplico, South Carolina. The facade is a rich blue that has faded white in spots. A wooden tower stands behind the fire station, just before a tree line. The tower is used as a training facility for local fire stations.
Wahl’s body was found Sept. 21 behind the tower by three fire department employees who checked for a pulse and called the police. She was found lying face-down and barefoot, according to police records.
There appear to be no security cameras on the property, which Fire Chief Monty Tedder confirmed. Tedder said the fire department has no role in the investigation and declined to comment on what firefighters saw that morning.
‘I saw the smoke’
The path Wahl’s car cut through the cornfield is inexplicably straight. The quarter-mile line is so clean it could have been cut by a combine. The stalks of corn stand as tall as people, obscuring the view into the field from the highway.
Rasheeda Shaw saw remnants from an unfamiliar sight. Her house sits on the other side of Highway 378 facing the cornfield.
“I saw the smoke from . . . way down in the field,” just before 2 p.m. Sept. 19, she said. Shaw said the smoke was followed by two days of police presence in the area before it got quiet again.
‘The letters of God won’t burn’
No two locals seemed to know it by the same name, the area between towns where Wahl’s car was found burned in a cornfield.
Shaw called the area Scranton, but her home has a Coward address. Another neighbor called it High Hill, the highest point between Lake City and the Lynches River.
The cornfield is bound in the southwest by a church and in the northeast by Keith Lane. Many of the houses on Keith Lane instruct visitors to “KEEP OUT.” Padlocks, big dogs fenced-in and “DO NOT TRESPASS” signs adorn the homes.
The cornfield spans about a dozen acres stretched along Highway 378. Wahl’s burned car was pulled from a ditch just an hour after relatives say they heard from her for the last time.
Here, about seven miles east of Lake City, neighbors, groundskeepers and country store cashiers theorize about what happened to Wahl. Employees at a McAlister’s Deli in The City of Florence could be heard chattering about Wahl when Sun News reporters stopped in for lunch.
Her body would be discovered behind a fire station in Pamplico 42 hours after her car was found nearly 10 miles down Highway 378.
The Florence County Sheriff’s Office called on Robert Parker, owner of Robert’s 4wd Service Center, to tow Wahl’s car.
He said the car looked like it had taken a nosedive into the ditch. Parker, a former volunteer firefighter, said the car was so “completely burned” that the only indicator of its color was a small section of the hood.
The car’s license plate was missing and the VIN, or vehicle identification number, was illegible, according to a police report from the Florence County Sheriff’s Office..
“The front of the hood was the only way they [could tell] it was a burgundy car,” Parker said.
He said nothing was left inside the car but copper wires and a Bible.
“You know, the Bible won’t burn. The letters of God won’t burn,” Parker said.
Death still a mystery to the public
Authorities have said little to the public about Wahl’s disappearance and death, leaving speculation to run rampant.
She was last seen at a moped rental on Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, where she was denied service for not wearing shoes, according to a police report.
The Myrtle Beach Police Department opened the investigation. Police determined Wahl left the city “safely” before asking the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to step in and take over the case.
SLED has not provided any information about the investigation to the public and spokesperson Tommy Crosby declined to answer questions from The Sun News.
Officials have not named suspects nor stated whether they suspect foul play.
An autopsy was completed Friday at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, Florence County Coroner Keith von Lutcken said. He told The Sun News it could take three weeks to determine the cause of Wahl’s death, pending the outcome of toxicology testing.
“We haven’t ruled anything out,” von Lutcken said Friday.
This story was originally published September 30, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
