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A South Carolina couple had been celebrating their son's 7th birthday on Sunday afternoon when they looked to the skies. A fighter jet was flying above them in an "inverted" position, they said, before they heard a "boom" moments later.

"Our kids always give a little salute, so we said, 'Look at the plane. Oh my gosh, it's so low,'" Adrian Truluck said. "And it was kind of probably 100 feet above the tree tops, and almost going inverted."

"It was probably three quarters of the way," added her husband, Stephen Truluck, as he gestured with his hand. "We could see the canopy" of the plane.

They didn't think much of it at the time, they said, because Shaw Air Force Base is about 60 miles away. But after learning an F-35 fighter jet had gone missing — and learning on Monday that a debris field was found just miles from their home in rural Williamsburg County — they realized what they saw likely wasn't just any aircraft.

The Marine Corps did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday about the Trulucks' account, but an investigation remains ongoing.

The incident drew attention Sunday afternoon when Joint Base Charleston, located about 80 miles south of Williamsburg County, asked the public for help finding a missing F-35B Lightning II jet.

The jet's pilot had "ejected safely" just before 2 p.m., but the military said it could not locate the F-35, which is known for its stealth mode capabilities, because its transponder did not appear to be working.

It wasn't until more than 24 hours later when the base announced a debris field had been located in Williamsburg County.

Questions remain as to why the pilot ejected from the aircraft and why the jet appeared to have continued flying undetected.

After initially saying the jet had been left in autopilot when the pilot ejected from the aircraft, Jeremy Huggins, a spokesman at Joint Base Charleston, later told NBC News that authorities did not know whether that was the case and were still investigating the matter.

The Trulucks said they did call the military on Monday afternoon to report what they had seen the day before, but believe authorities had likely already zeroed in on the crash site.

They said the jet would have flown over a sunflower field, trees and a few houses along their road before crashing. No injuries were reported on the ground.

The couple added that they heard a subtle "boom" noise following the sighting of the jet but figured there was a simple explanation.

"We were thinking it was rolling thunder in the distance and didn't give it another thought until we saw the plane was missing," Adrian Truluck said, "and we were like that had to be the plane."

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The reform went into effect Monday after nearly three years of brutal legislative and political fights over the SAFE-T Act, one of several massive pieces of equity-focused legislation pushed by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus in the wake of nationwide protests in 2020 over injustices faced by Black Americans and systemic racism more broadly.

Criminal justice reform advocates have been working toward the rollout for years, beginning with the premise that an arrestee's ability to post bond does not equate with the danger he or she poses to the community. While some charged with violent crimes like domestic battery were able to buy their way out of jail under the old system, others were left sitting in jail for weeks or months because they couldn't afford bail, sometimes for low-level offenses.

[...]

But while the end of cash bail is supposed to create a more equal justice system, the months of preparation leading up to the SAFE-T Act's full implementation have accentuated profound disparities between the court systems in each of Illinois' 102 counties

[...]

Per state law — which hasn't been updated since 1949 — only counties with 35,000 or more residents are required to set up offices of public defender, and even then, they're not required to be full-time. Counties with populations of less than 35,000 aren't required to establish a public defender program, though in modern history even the smallest of counties have at least contracted part-time public defenders, while others have voluntarily hired full-time public defenders.

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