Police rescued a 13-year-old girl, who was reported missing in Louisiana, from a basement in Pittsburgh, where they found her in a box covered by a sheet, according to police and local officials.
Rescued from the Brighton Heights neighborhood, the young girl was found when a search warrant was executed on a home on Davis Avenue on Thursday.
Police said the girl had been contacted on the popular app Snapchat by 26-year-old Ki-Shawn Crumity, who said he would help arrange for her to be adopted, police said.
Online grooming
“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.”
Crumity allegedly gave the minor drugs and alcohol on the first day he held her, and allegedly proceeded to sexually assault the minor multiple times.
Crumity, who police said kept the girl in the basement for days, was arrested alongside 62-year-old Ronald Smith and other unnamed adults. Crumity is in the Allegheny County Jail on multiple charges, including trafficking, sexual assault, and corruption of a minor.
During the week-long investigation, US Marshals were led to Smith in Columbus, Georgia. He was said to have transported the girl from Baton Rouge to Georgia and then put her on a bus to Pittsburgh with the help of another man.
After arriving in Pittsburgh, the minor was reportedly transported to Crumity, and the three were said to have shared a bed together.