Dead Body “Hidden in Killer’s House” Missed Twice By Police Search

The body of a six-year-old girl who was kidnapped and strangled to death by her neighbor was in his house, but police missed it twice during two separate police searches, according to a new report.

Faye Marie Swetlik disappeared from her home in South Carolina on February 10. Her body was found hidden in a crude grave just 200 feet from her abductor Coty Taylor’s home on February 13.

But a new report has revealed how Taylor, 30, who killed himself on the day Faye was discovered, kept the little girl’s body in his home until the morning of February 13.

CCTV footage shows a person emptying the contents of a black bin bag in the wooded area where Faye’s body was later discovered, just 300 feet from her home.

Police had been to Taylor’s house twice in the days leading up to her burial.

However, on both occasions, police failed to identify anything that connected the property to the child’s disappearance.

The first time they went to Taylor’s residence was on February 12 and he wasn’t home. His roommates answered instead, and they described him as “childish and depressed.”

On that occasion, officers noticed a full black laundry bag stored in a closet under the stairs, but it wasn’t deemed suspicious at the time.

Investigators returned to Taylor’s home later that day when Taylor was home. He was interviewed by police, who he told he had been sleeping at the time that Faye disappeared.

Taylor consented to a second search of the home.

The bag seen during the first search was then taken in for forensic examination and found to have traces of Faye’s DNA on it.

After Faye’s body was discovered, Taylor’s DNA was found under her fingernails, police said.

The rain boot that Faye had last been seen in was also found in his trash bin on February 13, along with a ladle that contained Faye and Taylor’s DNA.

“All endings, evidence and facts point to the exact same conclusion: Coty Taylor abducted and murdered Faye Marie Swetlik and was the sole perpetrator in this horrible case,” Cayce Department of Public Safety Director Byron Snellgrove said Friday.

Taylor’s dead body was found on his back porch just moments after Faye’s body was found.

No motive for the crime has been determined, police said, while no link between him and Faye’s family has been established.