Why it likely will be weeks before Sheridan Wahl’s cause of death is determined
It will likely be weeks before the cause of death of a woman who went missing in Myrtle Beach and was later found dead under mysterious circumstances in Florence County is determined.
According to Florence County Coroner Keith von Lutcken, Sheridan Wahl’s case is pending additional postmortem studies and investigation following an autopsy at the Medical University of South Carolina on Friday.
“We do not have any additional information to share at this time, but will keep you informed in the coming weeks,” von Lutcken said Monday in reference to the case of Wahl, whose body was found behind a fire station in Florence County last Tuesday.
Her body was found two days after her parents reported her missing. She was last seen at a moped rental on Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, about 46 miles away from the fire station in the neighboring county where her body would be found.
Authorities found a car belonging to Wahl, a 21-year-old college student at the University of South Florida who is from Tampa, Florida, and traveled to Myrtle Beach to visit her dad but never made it to his house, set on fire in a cornfield nine miles away from where her body was found.
At the moped rental, Wahl was denied service for not wearing shoes and she told her mother she was returning home, according to a police report.
Wahl last spoke to her mom on a FaceTime call about 1 p.m. Sept. 19, when she told her daughter to spend the night in Myrtle Beach to avoid the long drive home at night. Police say her family had not been able to reach her since, and calls to her phone went straight to voicemail.
Deputies found Wahl’s burgundy 2018 Toyota Corolla burned in a cornfield at 1:56 p.m. on Sept. 19 off of Keith Lane in Scranton, S.C., a town with a population of about 900, according to the Florence County Sheriff’s Office report. That was just an hour after anyone last heard from Wahl.
The car did not have a license tag and the vehicle identification number was illegible, the report states.
The three fire department personnel who found Wahl’s body told deputies they checked her pulse and found that she was already dead, according to a police report.
“It appeared she had been there a while because of the different colors of her skin,” a Florence County sheriff’s deputy wrote in the police report.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is investigating Wahl’s disappearance and death and was called to the scene where Florence County sheriff’s deputies found her body. SLED spokesperson Tommy Crosby declined to provide any comment, citing an open investigation.
The deputy said he found Wahl lying face down in the grass behind the fire station’s training tower. A brown hat and sunglasses were found near her body.
She wore a brown tank top, orange shorts and no shoes.
