Missing 4-year-old’s dad talks to News 12 as search continues in Aiken County
AIKEN, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) – As local, state and federal law enforcement agencies continue a large-scale search for a missing 4-year-old, News 12 has interviewed her father.
Since Javeayah Kemauni Harris was reported missing Tuesday night, authorities have searched 3,000 acres.
Aiken County Sheriff’s Office told us crews will work until dark Thursday and resume the search Friday morning.
Her dad says it’s been tough.
“Not knowing is killing me,” Johmarea Harris told News 12. “It’s killing me, like, because, like, I mean, you see stuff like this often, but you don’t expect it to be you.”
As for the girl’s mom, “She’s still a little tore, but she’s making it,” he said.
He said he was out of the house when the girl was reported missing, but he knew something was going on when he saw a lot of patrol vehicles in the area. He was doing laundry and had visited a convenience store, he said.
“I was seeing a lot of police and stuff going through. And I was wondering, I was like, you know what I’m saying, you know, a lot of stuff goes on in Aiken to where you would be, like, OK, it’s a police or whatever,” he said. “But you know, I didn’t know that it was my house. But my girlfriend, at the time she didn’t have service. She didn’t have a service on her phone, so she couldn’t call me to let me know anything that was going on. So she just ended up calling 911. So when I came back to the house, before I got on my road, I seen a police truck with a drone out.”
He said that’s when he sped up.
“Cause I was like, it’s something going down like close to my house. When I got turned on my road, I seen a whole bunch of police is like right in my house. So that’s when I hurried up and I got to the house and I was like, what’s going on?” he said. “I thought my girlfriend was in labor because she was supposed to have a baby. You know what I’m saying? So she ended up having a child that same night on July 1st. But she came up crying to me saying, Javeayah is missing.
“And I’m like, what the ****? I kind of freaked out. And the detectives were telling me I couldn’t go look and stuff like that because they didn’t want me to mess up the area or whatever. But that’s basically what happened up until all of this came about.”
He said the girl is not one to run away.
“No, she does not run away, but I will say that she is friendly. Like she’s friendly. Like she doesn’t, she doesn’t like, it’s not a stranger danger thing with her. It’s not like a, ‘Oh, get away from me.’ Like she didn’t get that. She didn’t understand it,” he said. “She was just all friendly to everybody. She was very respectful. Like, yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Yes, sir. No, sir. Like that’s That’s what she do. We raised her great. Like she was a real smart kid.”
He said that despite some media reports, there’s no indication she’s autistic.
“We never got her tested and she’s never given a sign that she is, you know, autistic. She talks good. She’s like very, like, she’s talking better than me. She got more respect than me,” he said.
He said the parents have no idea what could have happened to her.
“I have no clue. Like, sir. I don’t. I don’t, like, it’s really wild, but I had, like I said, I had, I had gave all of these detectives information about people snooping around the house lately,” he said.
Another new development in the case Thursday was the release of an incident report from the Aiken County Sheriff’s Office.
It states that the girl’s mother, Michilae Herring, called authorities just after 8:45 p.m. Tuesday to report that her daughter was missing from the home in the 30 block of Hillsboro Street.
The mother said she’d last seen the girl in the chicken coop playing with the chickens around 8 p.m.
She was wearing pink Minnie Mouse pajamas and Crocs and had pink beads in braided hair. She is 3 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 40 pounds.
Authorities called in more officers and the entire area was placed under surveillance, according to the report.
Deputies then spoke to the girl’s father, who arrived home around 9 p.m. He said he’d been to a laundromat to have his clothes washed and that he’d been gone for an hour and a half.
The search initially focused on the Hillsboro Street and Ridgecrest Road area.
Throughout the night Tuesday, deputies stopped vehicles in the area to ask questions and search cars. Crews also went door-to-door and searched nearby wooded areas.
Around 12:45 a.m. Wednesday, the Aiken County alert system sent out alerts via text, email and phone for Harris.
Law enforcement set up headquarters at Bethel Baptist Church on Wednesday morning as the search included roadblocks, a helicopter, drones and professionally trained search teams.
The search took an overnight break late Wednesday and resumed Thursday morning.
THE SEARCH AREA:
After a Thursday morning meeting with the searchers, a deputy told News 12 the case was being considered an abduction. However, authorities soon backtracked and said that was a misspeak.
By midday Thursday, deputies with clipboards were stopping cars at Pipeline Road and Reynolds Pond Road to ask people questions. Every car exiting the Shiloh Heights area was being stopped for questioning and a search.
Aiken County Sheriff Marty Sawyer held a news conference at 4 p.m. Thursday to offer an update in which he basically outlined what’s been done so far.
“We are not able to share every detail and we may not have the answers to all the questions you have right now,” he said.
“I’m asking for patience and understanding,” Sawyer said. “Our priority is to bring Javeayah home to her family.“
He said the information authorities have is that she wandered away on her own, and that “this is still a search effort.”
He noted that immediately after she was reported missing, authorities set up road blocks in the area. The road blocks have continued nonstop and will go on for days, Sawyer said.
Sawyer said authorities are looking for witnesses and people who may not know they are witnesses.
He said authorities have talked to neighbors, conducted a grid search on foot, and used helicopters, drones and dogs.
The FBI is providing analytical support, and there are trained personnel on the ground, he said. That includes 200 law enforcement officers and first responders.
“And we are not giving up,” Sawyer said.
He thanked members of the public for the tips they have offered and encouraged people to keep calling. And he noted that the agency has set up a website where people can contribute surveillance video that may hold clues.
He said people can help by:
- Praying.
- Being vigilant.
- Searching their own property in any places a young child might hide.
As the search continues, deputies are asking the community not to show up in the area due to an operational search plan.
Deputies say if they need volunteers and community organizations, they will let the public know.
“People who are not trained properly can unknowingly interfere with these types of critical searches and every second counts when we are searching for a missing child,” the Aiken County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday. “We simply cannot risk someone not properly trained making a mistake, missing a clue, or causing other harm.”
Tips or sightings can be reported at 803-502-5200 or by calling 911.
Speaking on why this case isn’t an AMBER Alert, the Aiken County Department of Emergency Management said in a Facebook post, “An AMBER Alert is only issued if the case meets the required criteria, which includes a confirmed abduction, evidence of imminent danger, and enough descriptive information for the public to act on. That does not mean the case isn’t being actively investigated.”
FBI Columbia said: “The ongoing search for 4-year-old Javeayah Harris is leaving no place unchecked. Law enforcement and professionally trained searchers are working non-stop to #FindJaveayah. Law enforcement agencies are using every resource available to find this little girl.”
In addition to the FBI, the search involved the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Aiken Department of Public Safety, North Augusta Department of Public Safety, Edgefield County Sheriff’s Office, Lexington County Sheriff’s Office, S.C. Highway Patrol, S.C. Probation, Pardon and Parole, Aiken County Emergency Management and the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office Crime Suppression Team. On Tuesday night, GVW Fire, Monetta Fire Department and Eureka Fire were involved in the search.
Helicopter search
A helicopter appeared to be working near the same general search zone — but not perfectly over the center of the posted grid map.
The official search map focuses around the Hillsboro Bend Road/Reynolds Pond Road/Mayfield Road/Bethel Church area. Flight records showed SLED aircraft N500SC circling near Aiken Regional Airport, Columbia Highway North/Highway 1, Wire Road, and areas south/southeast of the airport.
That appears to be near or adjacent to the broader search area, especially if crews were expanding outward from the Hillsboro Street/Ridgecrest Road area.
The flight pattern suggests a search pattern, not simple travel. The helicopter is not just flying straight through. It makes repeated тιԍнт circles/loops over specific areas. That kind of pattern is consistent with an aircraft searching, rechecking a possible area of interest, or giving air support to ground teams.
The helicopter seems to focus around wooded/rural areas and water/low-lying areas. From the map, the loops appear to be over wooded land, open/rural property and areas near ponds/creeks. That matches what you’d expect in a missing-child search where crews are checking difficult terrain, wooded lots, drainage areas and places not easily visible from roads.
The official map shows a grid/sector search; the helicopter path shows wider aerial coverage. The official search map is divided into color-coded zones, likely ᴀssigned search sectors. The helicopter screensH๏τs suggest aerial crews were also checking outside or around some of those mapped ground-search zones — especially around the airport/Highway 1/Wire Road side.
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AIKEN, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) – As local, state and federal law enforcement agencies continue a large-scale search for a missing 4-year-old, News 12 has interviewed her father. Since…