Hardeeville worker looked down and found body of missing Columbia man in a ditch

The body of a missing man from Columbia was found alongside a Hardeeville interstate Thursday morning when a worker standing on a billboard platform spotted it from above, officials said.

Chris Ratliff, 29, was found dead along Interstate 95 just before 11 a.m. Thursday, according to Jasper County Coroner Willie P. Aiken III. His body was located in the water of a drainage ditch about 15 feet from the road near Exit 5.

Ratliff was reported missing by family members Feb. 18 and was last seen the night of Feb. 17 in Columbia, according to Deputy Veronica Hill, a spokesperson for the Richland County Sheriff’s Department. Also on Feb. 18, Hardeeville police received several reports of sightings and eventually found Ratliff’s car abandoned along I-95 in Hardeeville. They also found his phone.

Along with a team of cadaver dogs, officers from both departments searched “up and down” the interstate for the next week but could not locate the man’s body, according to Chief Sam Woodward of the Hardeeville Police Department. Ratliff’s body wasn’t found until Thursday — more than a week after police called off their search — by a billboard worker.

Woodward said the dark drainage and Ratliff’s black clothes made the body hard to spot. Ratliff’s body and car were also on opposite sides of the highway, which pointed police in the wrong direction, Hill added.

Ratliff’s autopsy is scheduled for today at Charleston’s Medical University of South Carolina, Aiken said. He has not determined a precise time of death, but said Ratliff had likely been dead for “at least two days” before the discovery of the body.

Police do not suspect foul play, Hill said. Ratliff’s body shows no signs of trauma, but investigators are awaiting toxicology results.

The case is still under investigation, Hill added.