A 13-year-old Louisiana girl who went missing after meeting a man online was found alive in a box at his home several states away in Pennsylvania – along with evidence that she had been sexually assaulted, according to authorities.
Ki-Shawn Crumity, 26, faces charges of human trafficking, sexual assault, unlawful contact with a minor and corruption of a child after police in Pittsburgh said they arrested him on Thursday. He is one of at least three men who had been arrested as of Saturday amid an investigation involving law enforcement agencies in multiple states.
“This child … was groomed, exploited and then sexually abused by strangers who found her online,” Louisiana’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, said in a statement on Friday. “This is just one example of the dangers of social media and of human trafficking.”
Officials reported that the teenager at the center of the case – a resident of Baker, Louisiana – disappeared on about 20 October after meeting Crumity through social media. Investigators said they then tracked her across a number of states – and by Thursday, after receiving information from federal agents, Pittsburgh police discovered the girl trapped in a sheet-covered box in Crumity’s basement in the city’s Brighton Park neighborhood.
The child was brought to a hospital, and there was evidence of sexual assault recovered, Guardian news-gathering partner WWL Louisiana reported, attributing that information to officials.
Citing a criminal complaint, Pittsburgh news outlet WTAE reported that the girl spoke to investigators in detail about what had happened to her. She purportedly said she connected with Crumity on the social media platform Snapchat – and that he promised he would help get her adopted by a trusted adult.
The child said she was able to get to Pittsburgh by taking a Greyhound bus – and once at Crumity’s home, they slept in a bed in the basement along with a third person described as a woman, the criminal complaint explained.
Crumity further gave the girl edibles – a term used to describe food products infused with cannabis – and sexually assaulted her repeatedly for about a week, she told investigators, according to WTAE.
WTAE also said the criminal complaint quoted the girl as saying that the safest she ever felt was at the hospital where she was taken once authorities rescued her from Crumity’s basement.
Crumity was denied bail after being booked into Pittsburgh’s jail, police there said.
A 62-year-old man named Ronald Smith has also been arrested in Columbus, Georgia, in connection with the girl’s temporary disappearance.
He and another man, Alvin Hanson, were alleged to have driven the girl from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Georgia before putting her on a bus headed north.
Smith is accused of simple kidnapping and contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, authorities said.
Meanwhile, Hanson, 64, was arrested in New Orleans – about 60 miles from Baton Rouge – on a count of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, Brian Fair of the US marshals service said.
Investigators said they anticipate making more arrests in the case. They did not immediately elaborate, but the Louisiana news station WAFB quoted officials as saying a man and a woman – both from the Washington DC area – were in Crumity’s basement at the time the girl was rescued from there.
