What we know about Coty Taylor, the man linked to Faye Swetlik’s death

Coty Scott Taylor — the deceased man linked to the death of 6-year-old Faye Swetlik of Cayce — was an honor student at Bluffton High School who later went on to briefly attend the University of South Carolina.

At Bluffton High, Taylor was on the robotics team and participated in Model UN, according to the Island Packet of Hilton Head. He lived on Sugaree Drive in Bluffton’s Windy Lake neighborhood.

In February 2007, Taylor was part of the Bluffton High robotics team that finished second in an Orangeburg state competition, with a robot called “Fear the Evil of Computer Love.”

Taylor was the robot’s driver and told The Island Packet, “The entire match is pretty much based on the autonomous part.”

During his senior year, Taylor was a member of the Model United Nations team and participated in the Georgia Southern University’s 36th annual Model United Nations competition, the newspaper said.

Taylor graduated in the top 10 percent of his class, according to a Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce advertisement in The Island Packet congratulating him and other students from high schools on Hilton Head and in Bluffton.

Taylor enrolled at the University of South Carolina-Beaufort in the fall of 2007, transferred to USC Columbia in fall 2008, and then withdrew in the spring of 2009, university officials said.

There is no record of his graduation, they said.

Taylor later worked as a manager of a local Jimmy John’s restaurant until 2015, corporate officials from the company’s human resources office in Raleigh confirmed Friday. But operations manager Molly Wilson said that she didn’t know which store or the length of his employment.

She sent condolences to Swetlik’s loved ones on behalf of the company.

“We hate to hear that for the family,” Wilson said. “We’re very sorry.”

Taylor, 30, was found dead in his home on Thursday, police said. The cause and manner of death will be determined by an autopsy which is scheduled for Saturday, Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher said.

Isabella Cueto of The State contributed to this story.

This story was originally published February 14, 2020 at 5:02 PM.