The case is closed, but investigators still don’t know how Faye Swetlik was abducted
While the case is closed in the investigation of 6-year-old Faye Swetlik’s murder, police say they don’t know how the girl was abducted in the Churchill Heights neighborhood of Cayce in February 2020.
Police were unable to determine if Swetlik was abducted by force near her residence or lured to 602 Piccadilly Square by her killer, Coty Taylor, according to the Cayce Department of Public Safety investigation report.
Swetlik was last seen on Feb. 10, 2020, around 3:45 pm at her home at 16 Londonderry Square in Cayce. She was playing outside around her townhouse after getting home from school.
Two neighbors told police they saw Swetlik before she went missing. One neighbor said he saw her around 3:30-3:45 pm across the street in the parking lot in and around the front of her home. At one point he stated his dog was barking in the back yard and she called out to the dog.
Another neighbor saw her around 4 p.m. when he was driving out of the parking lot. He said Swetlik cut in front of his car and he told her to be careful. Dudley told police she went by the trash cans in front of a duplex by the road and he saw her running “behind/ between the duplexes across from hers” at 102 Londonderry Square and the fence line toward Airport Boulevard.
Her mother, Selena Collins, started looking for her at 4:20 p.m., according to the report, and called the police at 4:55 p.m. to report her missing. Cops showed up at 5 p.m.
On Feb. 13, 2020, after days of searching, police found Swetlik’s body buried in a wooded area behind Taylor’s house. Taylor, 30, lived near Swetlik, but did not know her. He’d concealed her body in his apartment until the morning of Feb. 13 when he buried her, police said.
He was found dead outside of his apartment, only about 200 feet away from Swetlik’s body, with an incision in his neck, said the report. Taylor’s death was ruled a suicide, according to Lexington Coroner Margaret Fisher.
Taylor asphyxiated Swetlik in a matter of hours after kidnapping her, the report said.
The report also could not establish whether or not Taylor had any accomplices before, during or after the crime, it said.
