SC SOPHIA & MATTEO VAN DAM: Missing from Sumter / Beaufort, SC - 24 June 2023 - Age 20 & 2

FBI: Missing South Carolina mom, toddler may be in Beaufort County

Sophia Van Dam, 20, and son Matteo, 2, were last seen in June

www.wjcl.com

FBI: Missing South Carolina mom, toddler may be in Beaufort County​

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and multiple state and local agencies are searching areas throughout Beaufort County for a mother and her two-year-old son.

Sophia Van Dam, 20, and son Matteo, have not been seen since June.

In a Facebook post from June 29, Sumter Police said that Sophia and Matteo previously lived in Beaufort but had moved to a Wilson Street, Sumter address.

The pair were last seen on June 24 in Beaufort before driving back to Sumter.

Family members have not heard from her since then and law enforcement has not been able to make contact with her, police said in the post. Her car, however, was located at their home.



Media - SOPHIA & MATTEO VAN DAM: Missing from Sumter / Beaufort, SC - 24 June 2023 - Age 20 & 2

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

‘I’m still praying’: FBI joins search of missing Sumter woman and son

Several law enforcement agencies are stepping in to join the search of a missing Sumter mom and her son.

www.wistv.com

‘I’m still praying’: FBI joins search of missing Sumter woman and son​

Several law enforcement agencies are stepping in to join the search of a missing Sumter mom and her son.

Sophia Van Dam and her two-year-old son Matteo were last seen in June with family in Beaufort. Now the FBI and SLED are joining the search.

It’s been over two months since Sophia Van Dam and her son have last been seen or heard from. WIS spoke with family members who said they’re not giving up hope just yet.

“According to what they’ve told me, they don’t know one way or another which way this thing is going to go,” said Theresa Van Dam, Sophia’s mom.

Words from Sophia Van Dam’s mother and Matteo’s grandmother almost a month into the two’s disappearance. Now more than two months later she said she hasn’t given up hope.

“I’m still praying,” Van Dam said.

And still searching for answers. Theresa Van Dam said her daughter Sophia called home just days before her and her son disappeared. According to her mother, there had been a fight between Sophia and her boyfriend that lived with her in her Sumter home.

“She said that she just wanted to come. She was very upset, crying,” Van Dam recalled.

WIS found through a Freedom of Information Act Request the Sumter Police Department responded to a domestic call made from the Sumter home on June 4. Van Dam said after her daughter called home, she spent the next few weeks with her son in Beaufort at their family home and had plans to move back there. Then on the morning of June 22, Theresa Van Dam returned home to find all of Sophia and Matteo’s belongings gone. The last time she spoke with her daughter was June 24 via text.

“She had been texting saying crazy things,” Van Dam said. “She must’ve been having ... because of stressors on trying to make decisions on what she needed to do. I don’t know if someone had gave her something because she was sort of talking out of her mind.”

Investigators with the Sumter Police Department said following several welfare calls to the home, officers found Van Dam’s car parked outside of her Sumter home on June 26. When they went to knock on the door, no one answered. According to an FBI spokesperson, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office along with the Sumter Police Department, SLED and FBI were in multiple locations on Friday actively looking for leads in the case.

WIS reached out to the local FBI office for comment and have not heard back.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Search widens for Sumter mom, son missing since June 2023

The investigation now includes agents from SLED, FBI, and other state law enforcement agencies.

www.wltx.com

Search widens for Sumter mom, son missing since June 2023​

The search for a missing Sumter mother and son has grown into a multi-agency investigation as of Sept. 1.

Sophia Van Dam, 20, and her 2-year-old son Matteo were reported missing from their Wilson Street home in Sumter, South Carolina, in June 2023 after not making contact with other family members. At that time, Sumter Police officers searched the area around Van Dam's home after her car was found next to her home, but no one was found in the home or vehicle.

Police did not provide details regarding the investigation because the case is ongoing. Sumter Police, however, have been joined by Beaufort County Sheriff's Office, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the search for the mother and son.

Family pleads for help in finding missing Sumter woman and two-year-old son

A family in Beaufort is pleading for help finding 20-year-old Sophia Van Dam and her two-year-old son, Matteo.The Sumter Police Department is investigating af

wach.com

Family pleads for help in finding missing Sumter woman and two-year-old son
A family in Beaufort is pleading for help finding 20-year-old Sophia Van Dam and her two-year-old son, Matteo.

The Sumter Police Department is investigating after finding her car at her home, but no one inside.

Van Dam's family says Sophia and Matteo have been missing for nearly a month from their home in Sumter, S.C.

Sophia's mother, Theresa Van Dam, says the circumstances leading up to her disappearance are unusual.

"She called on the fourth and said she wanted to come home, that she had talked to my husband and said she wanted to live at home," said Van Dam.

Van Dam believed the call may have stemmed from the relationship with her boyfriend who had been physical in the past.

Van Dam says her daughter and grandson decided to leave Sumter and move back home to Beaufort, South Carolina on June 4, but weeks before they came home, she says she remembers getting a call from her daughter that worried her.

"She called me up and said, 'mom, if I ever call you up in the middle of the night, no matter what time and say mom I need to come home, is it okay?'" said Van Dam, explaining what her daughter said in phone call to her in May.


She says in their last conversation, she worried her daughter may have been having a mental breakdown.

"I said 'Sophia, I think you are having some sort of psychotic breakdown, let me take you to the hospital...' she refused to let me do that," said Van Dam.

After not being able to contact her daughter for nearly a week after she left their home in what seemed like disarray, she called Sumter Police to request a wellness check on June 28. According to police, Sophia and Matteo were nowhere to be found, but the car and her son's car seat were still at the home.

Right now, the family is asking the community for their prayers and to spread the story so she can get her daughter and grandson home safe.

 

[GrandmaBear]

So this has been reported and known of since June it sounds like?

Id' think by now they'd have cell phone records and more and interviews with the bf etc. I don't have time to read the links but nothing posted here says they have found a thing or interviewed him, nothing about her cell phone, purse, keys, and so forth. Bank activity? Can they or have they gotten warrants to look at such?

I don't think I need to say a word as to what my leaning would be as everyone knows. Not saying I have any reason to conclude it other than what it seems like so I'm open, just the natural lean.

Is the bf begging for her to be found and for answers? Just wondering.

 

[Summer_Breeze]

https://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/community/beaufort-news/article278874549.html

BY KARL PUCKETT
UPDATED SEPTEMBER 02, 2023 9:33 AM

Representatives of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies were at a residence on Rerock Road in Burton on Friday afternoon possibly looking for connections to the mysterious June disappearance of Sophia Van Dam and her 2 -year-old son Matteo. The property is the residence of Jonas Jerry Washington Sr.

James Moss, an attorney for Washington Sr., said authorities also searched the property a few weeks ago and he (Washington Sr.) doesn’t know why. Authorities, Moss said, haven’t been forthcoming with information. “He (Washington Sr.) has been very open about it,” Moss said. “He doesn’t know anything.”

The property’s connection to the Van Dam case may have some association to Washington Sr.’s son, Jonas Jerry Washington Jr., 24. Her family has said repeatedly Sophia Van Dam and Washington Jr. were in a relationship and they shared a rental residence in Sumter.

<snip>
Washington Jr. is currently in jail in Effingham County in Georgia, where he is awaiting trial related to June 2020 charges of possession of a firearm or knife during the commission of or attempt of burglary; attempting to elude a police officer and drug-related offenses, according to court records.

Washington Jr. was initially jailed on June 30 in Beaufort County for fleeing to evade arrest, trespassing and being a fugitive from justice related to the Georgia charges. Beaufort County Sheriffs’ deputies had gone to the residence on Rerock Road to assist Animal Control agents who were responding to a complaint. When they arrived, Washington Jr. allegedly fled with his sister in a vehicle. A police chase ensued, Viens said, and he was arrested after he jumped out of the car and ran to a house, authorities said.

At the time of his June 30 arrest, Washington Jr. was out on bond for 2021 charges in Beaufort County for possession of a weapon in the commission of a violent crime, kidnapping, larceny and burglary related to an alleged carjacking on Shanklin Road, court records show. He was released on June 24, 2021 on house arrest. The conditions of his release included that he attend work with his father and have no contact with the carjacking victims, according to Beaufort County court records.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Sophia Van Dam should be celebrating her 21st birthday on Saturday. Instead, she's missing along with her toddler

Sophia Van Dam and her two-year-old son Matteo have been missing since late June. Law enforcement is still asking the public for tips on where she might be.

www.wltx.com

Sophia Van Dam should be celebrating her 21st birthday on Saturday. Instead, she's missing along with her toddler​

On the eve of a missing Sumter woman's 21st birthday, there's a renewed push for information into where she and her two year old son could be. Neither has been seen in about four months.

“We were having a cookout. And so that was the last time I saw her,” James Robinson says about his neighbor, Sophia Van Dam.

Van Dam and her two-year-old son Matteo have been missing for months. Robinson didn't want to be interviewed on camera, but he says Van Dam was new to the area. The last time he saw her was June 19.

“I would see her in the mornings. I guess she was going to work,” Robinson recalls. “I would see her leave in the morning. Come back in the evening.”

Now, the grass outside of Van Dam's house is growing tall as her family and investigators are left searching for answers.

In a press release on Friday, officials are again asking the public for any information. Her mother, Theresa Van Dam, says in a statement, “We love her and Matteo very much, and we’re waiting to celebrate her birthday in style when she comes home.”

Teresa says she still has hope and wants her family brought back.

Law enforcement says Van Dam was last seen driving to her Sumter home from Beaufort on June 24. Sumter Police Department says when officers went to search her home after her family hadn’t heard from her, Van Dam’s car was out front.

Robinson tells me officers searched her home for days.

“There was a bunch of them,” Robinson remembers. “So they took a lot of bags; there was a lot of them. For days, there was a lot of them.”

Now, Sumter PD has teamed up with the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and the FBI, working to investigate leads and hoping to get tips from the public.

“If they did know something, it would be nice to do the right thing,” Robinson says about anyone who might have information.

 

[Summer_Breeze]

Hundreds missing in South Carolina ahead of the Holiday season

Over 270 people are missing in South Carolina according

www.wltx.com

Author: Walker Lawson
Published: 7:12 PM EST December 14, 2023
Updated: 10:42 AM EST December 15, 2023

<snip>

Investigations into missing persons cases involve meticulous processes, as explained by Carol Tarte, Lt. Special Victims Unit with the Kershaw Sheriff's Office.

"We have to look into social media records, phone records, bank records, travel records. That can take several months to process just to get records back and then analyze them, but that time that it takes to get to that person is just significantly longer than that 24-48 hours that is portrayed on TV," she says.

Despite the challenges, Benji's family clings to hope, urging others not to give up hope even when the first critical hours pass.

"I really can't describe it. It's tough, I can tell you that, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone," Jarrick says.

As the holidays draw near, the city of Sumter and Kershaw County grapple with multiple ongoing missing person cases, including Sophia Van Dam and her son Matayo, who were reported missing in August.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Search continues for missing Sumter mother and son - ABC Columbia

The search continues for a Sumter mother and her 2-year-old son, who both went missing last year.

www.abccolumbia.com

Search continues for missing Sumter mother and son​

The search continues for a Sumter mother and her 2-year-old son, who both went missing last year.

Sophia Van Dam and son Matteo were last seen in 2023. Multiple law enforcement agencies, including Sumter Police, SLED and more are involved in the search for them both.

Anyone with information on the mother and son to submit tips at P3tips.com or 1-888-CRIME-SC.

Tips can also be submitted to SLED at tips@sled.sc.gov.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

https://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/community/beaufort-news/article290115374.html

Police claim ‘some progress’ but still no answers in case of missing Beaufort mom and son
The one-year anniversary of the disappearance of a Beaufort mother and her son came and went without public notice last month but police insist they haven’t given up and report “some progress” in the investigation.

Theresa Van Dam of Beaufort reported her daughter, Sophia, 20 at the time, and Sophia’s 2-year-old son, Matteo, missing to Sumter police on June 28, 2023 after not hearing from them for several days.

On Monday, Sumter police spokesperson Tonyia McGirt said, “We’re making some progress,” when asked about the case. But she shared no details that might shed light on how a young mother and son could seemingly disappear without a trace.

McGirt insists the case remains active.

“I know our agency does not give up,’ McGirt said. “We are continuing to investigate.”

The FBI and South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) and Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office have assisted. FBI spokesman Kevin Wheeler and Beaufort County Sgt. Danny Allen referred questions to Sumter police, which his leading the investigation. SLED and family members did not respond to messages seeking comment.

When asked if police think Sophia and Matteo are alive, McGirt said she would not speculate.