What Happened to Jeremy Grice from Aiken, South Carolina?

On November 22, 1984, a four-year-old little boy vanished in the rain from his parents’ home. Jeremy Grice lived with his mother and step-father, Donna and Nick Arrington, and his 10-month-old sister Christy. His step-father put Jeremy to bed the night before while his mom worked second shift at a local manufacturing plant that made thermostats. She arrived home from her shift around 1 a.m. and went to sleep. Her husband Nick got up around 7 a.m. to go to work. Around 10 a.m., Jeremy’s infant sister woke her mother up. Donna was surprised her son hadn’t woken her up already by that time. She searched their mobile home and the bedroom Jeremy normally slept in. His covers were pulled back and his pillow was in the middle of the bed, and she noticed the front door was cracked open. Fearing the worst, she searched their front yard before heading over to her father-in-law’s home. He lived about 500 yards away. But no one was home there, and none of the neighbors had seen him.

She put in a call to Jeremy’s biological father, Ray Grice, who was working nearby. He immediately drove over to help with the search. She also called her husband Nick to help search. Then they called the Aiken County Sheriff’s Department at around 1:30 p.m. when they could find no sign of Jeremy in the neighborhood.

A Witness Appears

Later that evening, when a local resident and hairstylist named Geneva Van Buren was returning home from work, she noticed a heavy police presence near the Arrington property. Later that night, while she was watching the evening news, she learned little Jeremy Grice was missing. She had seen the boy standing out in the rain with no jacket or shoes that morning in his driveway when she was driving to work. He had his dog standing beside him. She slowed her car down, worried he or the dog would run out in the road. She thought it was unusual that he was out in the rain at 8:45 in the morning. Van Buren’s daughter encouraged her to call the Sheriff’s Department the next day to report what she’d seen.

Over the following days, law enforcement and neighbors combed the woods surrounding the Arrington home and even dragged two ponds to make sure the boy hadn’t accidentally fallen in or drowned. The Sheriff’s Department announced they felt certain the boy had been kidnapped. A listener actually sent me a message some time ago mentioning this case because she lived about a mile from where Jeremy went missing. Her family was part of the search party. And her family always reminded her to be safe while playing outside because of what had happened.

His mother said the boy wouldn’t have gone outside without his jacket on, and that he was scared of the rain, so the sighting of him by Geneva Van Buren was confusing. She believed someone must have come into the trailer and gotten him while she was asleep. Jeremy’s dad Ray Grice pointed out that there was only one road in and out of the neighborhood—it wasn’t the type of area where random drivers came through early in the morning. He believed someone Jeremy knew had taken him, otherwise the dog would have defended the boy. The dog was still at the home after Jeremy went missing.

A few years after Jeremy’s disappearance, in February 1987, investigators thought they might have a break in the case. Six children ranges ages 2 to 7 were found at a park in Tallahassee, Fla. They were cold, hungry, and covered with insect bites. They were with two men who were known to be a part of the group, “The Finders,” a secretive commune based in Washington, D.C. Police had no idea who the children, four boys, and two girls, were and the men weren’t talking. Law enforcement in South Carolina looked at pictures of the children but didn’t determine any of them to be missing from South Carolina. The mothers of the children found in Florida eventually came forward to claim them, and the story of The Finders is an intriguing rabbit hole to head down if you’re interested.

A Serial Killer Connection

Jeremy’s entry on The Charley Project website noted that a child serial killer named William Ernest Downs had been questioned in Jeremy’s disappearance. He murdered a six-year But he would have only been a teenager at the time Jeremy went missing, and he was never charged in the case. He was from Aiken. He murdered a six-year-old boy and a ten-year-old boy in Augusta, Georgia in 1991 and 1999. Downs was executed by lethal injection in South Carolina on July 14, 2006.

Over the years, the Aiken County Sheriff’s Office produced age-progression photographs of what Jeremy might look like as he aged. When he went missing, Jeremy Grice was four years old, with blonde hair and hazel eyes. He stood three feet eight inches tall or four feet tall and weighed around 40 pounds. He has moles on his scalp and behind his left earlobe. He would be 42 years old today. Anyone with information about the whereabouts of Jeremy Grice is asked to contact the Aiken County Sheriff’s Department 803-642-1761.

Jeremy’s story was featured in Episode 91 of the podcast, Missing in the Carolinas.