Jacqueline Reid pleaded guilty in the deaths of 17-year-old Maylashia Hogg and the baby girl Hogg was days away from delivering.

BARNWELL, S.C. — A 64-year-old South Carolina woman has been sentenced to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty in the deaths of a pregnant teenager and her unborn daughter, bringing a court resolution to a case that began with a missing-person search in February 2024. Circuit Judge Walton J. McLeod sentenced Jacqueline Y. Reid on Aug. 20 after she admitted guilt to murder and causing the death of an unborn child during the commission of a violent crime. Local court reporting said the 50-year terms imposed on the two counts will run concurrently.

The plea resolved the prosecution of Reid more than two years after 17-year-old Maylashia Hogg disappeared in Barnwell while 40 weeks pregnant. Hogg was close to giving birth and had an upcoming hospital induction when she vanished. Her body and that of her unborn baby girl were found Feb. 18, 2024, in a ditch behind or near Reid’s property, according to investigators and state authorities. Prosecutors later said Hogg had suffered about 50 stab wounds. The baby also suffered fatal injuries. The case moved from a community search to a homicide investigation, then through a lengthy forensic investigation before Reid was arrested in July 2024.

Hogg was last seen alive on Feb. 8, according to the account prosecutors presented at a 2026 bond hearing. Surveillance footage showed the teenager leaving her boyfriend’s home and walking past a park toward the area of her own home. She did not arrive there. Her absence soon became especially alarming because she was at the end of her pregnancy and was expected at medical appointments. Family members tried to find her as the days passed. Early public reports differed over the precise date on which she was formally reported missing, but authorities agreed that she disappeared in early February and was found dead on Feb. 18.

The investigation eventually focused on Reid’s residence. Prosecutors said detectives were able to track Hogg’s AirPods to Reid’s address, providing an important lead in the search. Investigators searching behind the home found Hogg and her unborn daughter in a ditch. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, known as SLED, had been asked by Barnwell police to assist with the case. The state agency said specialists from several units took part, including forensic laboratory personnel, crime-scene investigators, regional agents and the Special Victims Unit. What began as an effort to find a missing teenager had by then become a complex investigation into two deaths.

Evidence described later in court tied the investigation more closely to Reid’s house. Prosecutors said forensic testing detected DNA matching Hogg at three locations inside the residence. That finding was significant because Reid had told investigators that the teenager had never been inside her home. Authorities also reported seeing rugs drying on Reid’s porch when investigators first went to the property. Prosecutors said the rugs smelled of bleach. Those circumstances were presented as part of a larger body of evidence developed during the investigation rather than as a single fact that established what happened inside the home.

Investigators also examined an injury Reid suffered around the time Hogg disappeared. Prosecutors said Reid went to a hospital Feb. 8 with a serious cut to a finger on her right hand. In a later jail call with her boyfriend, according to the prosecution account, Reid said she had cut herself while preparing chicken. Prosecutors said her boyfriend questioned the explanation because Reid described using her left hand to hold the knife while the injury was on her right hand. Authorities also pointed to other remarks from jail calls, including comments about not wanting to stay alone at the house and about buzzards being in the area. Those statements became part of the circumstantial case described in court.

SLED arrested Reid on July 1, 2024, after months of investigation. She was initially charged with two counts of murder, one connected to Hogg’s death and the other to her unborn child. The state agency said the case would be prosecuted by the 2nd Circuit Solicitor’s Office. At the time, investigators stressed that numerous state and local agencies had worked together, including Barnwell police, the Barnwell County Sheriff’s Office, the county coroner and several specialized SLED teams. Reid remained jailed as the case proceeded. At a bond hearing in May 2026, a judge denied her request for release while prosecutors publicly described evidence they said connected her to the killings.

One major question remained unresolved even as the evidence against Reid was laid out in court: why Hogg and her baby were killed. Solicitor Leigh Staggs acknowledged during the 2026 bond hearing that investigators had not established a motive. Prosecutors said Reid and Hogg knew each other and described tension between them, but they did not identify a specific event that explained the killings. The absence of an established motive did not prevent the prosecution from moving forward because motive is separate from the physical and circumstantial evidence used to establish criminal responsibility. Reid’s eventual guilty plea meant prosecutors did not have to present that evidence to a jury at a murder trial.

The case also carried a painful element for Hogg’s relatives because Reid was not a stranger to the family. Hogg’s stepfather, Michael Sapp, told local television station WRDW in 2024 that Reid was a family friend who had been around them before the teenager disappeared. Sapp said he had asked Reid during the search whether she had seen Hogg and that she told him she had not. Family members confronted the reality of Reid’s arrest at an early court appearance, expressing disbelief and grief. Their public comments came months after they had first gathered around a memorial and called for answers following the discovery of Hogg’s body.

Hogg’s pregnancy added urgency to the original search. Relatives knew she was at the point when she was expected to deliver, and public appeals described her as nine months pregnant. SLED later identified the unborn child as a baby girl to be named Londyn Charity. The agency established a dedicated tip line in March 2024 as investigators continued working to determine who was responsible. By July, Reid had been arrested. The prosecution then spent nearly two more years moving toward resolution, with prosecutors presenting a fuller account of their evidence during the May 2026 bond hearing before the case ended with guilty pleas that August.

The Aug. 20 sentencing converted what had long been an allegation into a criminal conviction based on Reid’s own guilty pleas. Law&Crime reported that McLeod ordered Reid to serve 50 years in a state correctional facility for Hogg’s killing, while WRDW reported that Reid received 50 years on each charge with the sentences running at the same time. At 64, the sentence could keep Reid incarcerated for most or all of the remainder of her life. The disposition also meant there would be no jury trial in which witnesses, forensic specialists and investigators would have been called to present the state’s evidence in full.

The criminal case has therefore reached its central legal conclusion even though prosecutors have said they still cannot explain the motive. Hogg and her unborn daughter were found more than two years before Reid admitted responsibility in court. What investigators were able to establish through surveillance footage, digital tracking, forensic evidence, witness information and Reid’s own statements ultimately led to a guilty plea and two concurrent 50-year sentences. No additional criminal defendant has been publicly identified in the killings, and the available sentencing reports do not indicate that another trial is pending.

Author note: Last updated Sept. 29, 2026.