14th Circuit Solicitor's Office​

Allendale, Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties​

Solicitor’s Office to prosecute former Catholic priest accused of criminal sexual conduct with a minor

A Jasper County grand jury has indicted a former Catholic priest on for the alleged sexual abuse of two children during the late 70s and early 80s, while he served in a Savannah, Ga., church.

The accused is 74-year-old Wayland Brown, a former parish priest at St. James Catholic School in Savannah.

The abuse is alleged to have taken place at several Jasper locations, Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone and Chatham County District Attorney Meg Heap announced Monday during a press conference.

Nine indictments were handed down Thursday by a Jasper County grand jury. They followed more than year of investigation by the Solicitor’s Office and the Chatham District Attorney’s Office.

Brown will be tried in Jasper County because South Carolina, unlike Georgia and federal courts, does not have a statute of limitations on child sexual assault cases.

Anyone with additional information about this case is encouraged to call the Chatham County District Attorney’s Office’s tip line at 912-652-8080.