Georgia teen vanished in South Carolina one year ago. What we know as search continues
A Georgia teenager hasn’t been seen since he vanished from a South Carolina home in March 2021, officials said.
One year later, the search continues for missing teen Semaj Goodwine. He was 15 years old when deputies said he disappeared from Camden, South Carolina, roughly 35 miles northeast of Columbia.
At the time, officials said Goodwine didn’t know others in the area too well. He started living there with his aunt about two months before he was reported missing on March 7, 2021, according to a Kershaw County Sheriff’s Office report.
“Law enforcement believes that Semaj could still be in South Carolina and may still be in Camden or the surrounding areas,” the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children wrote last week in a Facebook post. “It is also possible that Semaj traveled to the Covington, Georgia area.”
Covington is in Semaj’s home state of Georgia, roughly 35 miles southeast of Atlanta.
Semaj was reported missing after his aunt said she woke up for church at about 10 a.m. and couldn’t find him in the house. Some of the doors she had locked the night before were unlocked, according to the sheriff’s office report.
Kershaw County deputies say they searched the teen’s room and found drawers brimming with clothes but no cellphone charger. When officials checked his phone records, they found it last pinged at about 8 a.m. near Interstate 20 in Lugoff before it shut off.
Semaj is described as Black, with brown eyes, brown hair and a scar on his forearm. He was 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighed about 100 pounds at the time he went missing.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children urged anyone with information about the disappearance to call them at 800-843-5678 or Newton County, Georgia, deputies at 678-625-1400.
This story was originally published March 14, 2022 at 8:23 AM with the headline "Georgia teen vanished in South Carolina one year ago. What we know as search continues."
