Beaufort mom shows up at hearing wearing T-shirt with a message for daughter’s accused killer
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Beaufort’s Sophia Van Dam murder
Jonas Jerry Washington Jr. is accused of killing Beaufort native Sophia Van Dam and kidnapping her son.
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SUMTER — Theresa Van Dam of Beaufort wore a new T-shirt emblazoned with the smiling faces of her daughter, Sophia, and grandson, Matteo, as she sat with her husband Henry in the first row of a courtroom at the arraignment of Jonas Jerry Washington Jr., the man accused of killing their daughter and possibly kidnapping their grandson in this East Midlands community of 42,000 in 2023.
Neither of the two presumed victims have been found.
The photos were a vivid reminder of the lives cut short as well as a statement to Washington.
“If I can’t talk,” Van Dam said before the hearing, “hopefully my shirt will talk — and I want it in Jonas’ face.”
What are police saying?
Sophia was 20 when authorities say Washington Jr. killed her at the home they rented. Her body hasn’t been found. But so much of her blood was found it was concluded it was not possible she could have survived. Washington is charged with murdering her.
Authorities suspect Matteo, who was 2, is dead, too. But, at this point, there’s only enough evidence to charge Washington with kidnapping in his case.
Sophia’s parents made the 130-mile trip from Beaufort to Sumter to witness Washington’s arraignment, which ended after 4 minutes and involved the reading of the charges and arranging representation for him. He did not enter a plea.
Washington was expressionless when he entered the courtroom from a side door, never turning toward the audience where the Van Dam’s, both retired U.S. Marines, sat side by side, and his father, Jonas Washington Sr., watched, by himself, from a back row, as his son, wearing a red jumpsuit, shuffled forward in sandals, his hands and feet in shackles.
After the hearing, Washington Sr., who lives in Burton near Beaufort, declined to comment. On Sept. 1, 2023, a little more than a month after Sophia and Matteo were reported missing, authorities, including the FBI, searched Washington Sr.’s property, where Washington Jr. sometimes lived, but no information on what, if anything, was found has been released.
“Yes sir,” Washington Jr. quickly responded into the microphone in a deep voice when Judge George McFaddin Jr. asked him whether he understood the charges.
“No sir,” was the reply when asked if he had an attorney and wanted to enter a plea at the hearing.
Washington’s first appearance in a courtroom to face the murder and kidnapping charges came exactly two years — to the day — when he is accused of killing Sophia and kidnapping Matteo.
A few blocks from the courthouse, on Wilson Street, the yells of kids playing rang out in a well-kept neighborhood where Sophia lived briefly in a gray house with a front porch and yard and ultimately died.
“This is a horrendous situation for the community,” Ernest “Chip” Finney, the Third District solicitor prosecuting the case, told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet after the hearing.
Sophia and Matteo, he said, had only been living in the city for about a month.
A cause or precise manner of death of Sophia isn’t possible, Finney said, because her body has not been found to allow for a medical examination.
“We know she had a great amount of blood from the scene of the house, and we don’t know what caused the injuries,” Finney said.
There also is a “high probability” that Matteo is dead, too, said Finney, but there is only enough evidence to charge Washington with kidnapping.
“We still feel there may be hope we can find their remains,” Finney said.
Seven or eight deputies with the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office were in the courtroom for the proceeding, which came more than a year after a Sumter County grand jury, convening in secret, indicted Washington for murdering Van Dam and kidnapping Matteo sometime around June 22, 2023.. He was publicly arraigned in court Tuesday because he only recently was extradited from Georgia where he was serving a sentence on an unrelated charge.
This story was originally published June 24, 2025 at 4:34 PM.
