Last July, Kegan Kline of Peru, Indiana was sentenced to 40 years in prison on 25 counts ranging from child exploitation and possession of child pornography to obstruction of justice. During the Kline investigation, it was revealed that he had communicated through social media with 14-year-old Liberty German of Delphi, Indiana in the days leading up to the murders of Liberty and her 13-year-old friend Abigail Williams in February of 2017. According to 13WTHR, “Court documents show Kline saying he would talk to girls, even if they were under the age of 16, and that he found them on Instagram and then told them to message him on Snapchat. Kline allegedly claimed to have received pictures from all of the girls he chatted with and had saved them.” The investigation revealed Snapchat was Kegan Kline’s preferred platform for soliciting sexual abuse material from underage girls.
As this blog has previously pointed out, Snapchat comes up time and again as the platform of choice among Indiana predators apprehended by state and federal law enforcement. Undoubtedly, a little research would likely reveal that the Snapchat platform is quite popular among child predators outside the Hoosier state as well. With that in mind, a reasonable person might assume that if a company’s product is routinely utilized for victimizing children, and if that company’s name keeps appearing in news item after news item as the go to platform for perverted criminal low-lifes, then that company might seek to eliminate the problem, if for no other reason than to quash the endless stream of bad publicity. However, it’s hard to see where Snapchat is doing anything of the sort.
On November 11, Westfield, Indiana police arrested 20-year-old Benjamin Owen Rollo of Westfield and charged him with seven felony counts, including child molestation, sexual misconduct with a minor and possession of child pornography. According to 13WTHR, Rollo “is accused of using a Snapchat account to pressure young girls into meeting up with him, or into sending explicit photos.”
If you thought Snapchat alerted authorities to Rollo’s predatory behavior on its platform, you would be wrong. The mother of a 12-year-old victim discovered the messages on her daughter’s phone and contacted Westfield police.
As 13WTHR reports, “The victim’s mother learned of the attack by confiscating her daughter’s cellphone, where she found messages between her daughter and friends about the attack. The victim told friends she snuck out with a friend to meet Rollo on July 22, 2022. Rollo allegedly drove to the friend’s home, then drove the victim and the friend to Grand Park.
“When the victim asked where they were going, Rollo would not say.
“Rollo allegedly forced the 12-year-old in the back of a car during the attack. The victim deleted Rollo’s contact from her Snapchat in the hours after.
“Through her Snapchat account, investigators found Rollo had dozens more victims throughout the area, and that he used his Snapchat account, ‘johnny.backer,’ to target young girls.
“Police served a search warrant to his home in West Lafayette on Nov. 11, and he consented to a police interview.
“When asked about photos and images sent and received, specifically on Snapchat, Rollo advised he has asked young girls and teens for explicit images and has sent his own images, ‘15-20 times.’ Rollo also confirmed to police 12- and 13-year-old females are who he is attracted to. When asked further, he advised that he did not know, it is just ‘what he’s into.’
“His Snapchat account also revealed he raped a 14-year-old girl who he picked up in Carmel in December 2022. Multiple messages reportedly showed Rollo telling the girl what happened was not rape, and to please delete their interactions.
“Rollo confirmed the “johnny.backer” account was his secondary account, because he was not comfortable using his real name. While en route to the Hamilton County Jail, detectives asked Rollo how many images were on his phone of younger girls — he said well over 1,000 images.”
While it may be the case that Snapchat has no way of identifying the individual behind an anonymous account, and maybe they’re unable to determine in what area of the country the messages originate, surely the content of these messages should be cause for alarm and referral to federal authorities. It seems likely that some of the victims probably used their real names and locations, would it not be possible for Snapchat to notify local police that there is a predator in their midst? Rollo was able to determine that the girls he was messaging were local. Why can’t Snapchat identify potentially criminal and predatory behavior and notify the appropriate law enforcement agencies?
It would be nice if Rollo was the only serial Snapchat predator terrorizing tweens and teens in the Hoosier state. Then everyone could breathe a sigh of relief that finally the Snapchat rapist was behind bars and everyone could feel safe again.
For immediate release, November 14, 2023, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Indiana:
“Jacob Glenn, 26, of Cicero, Indiana, has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of a child.
“According to court documents, Jacob Glenn used Snapchat to communicate with girls between 13- and 15-years-old, falsely claiming to be a teen boy and offering to purchase nicotine or vape pens in exchange for sex. Glenn’s Snapchat username, ‘theplugfogshyde’ was intended to indicate that he could obtain vape pens for others he met online.
“On two occasions in 2021, Glenn coerced and enticed a girl between 12- and 15-years-old, to sneak out of her home after midnight to get vapes from him, including on Christmas Eve. Glenn picked the child up and drove her to a nearby truck stop where he told her that he would not accept cash for the vapes. Instead, Glenn stated that they could work out a “deal” where she could pay him with sex. Glenn picked up the same child again on January 17, 2022, and coerced and enticed her to engage in sex acts in exchange for vape pens. He used his phone to record the sexual conduct he engaged in with the child and instructed her to not tell anyone about his abuse. Glenn later used Snapchat to send a copy of the child sexual abuse video to two other minor girls.
“Glenn engaged in a similar course of criminal conduct with another minor girl he met on Snapchat between December 2021 and January 2022. The second victim was less than 14-years-old. On January 9, 2022, after a conversation via Snapchat, Glenn picked the second victim up near her home, drove her to a nearby truck stop, and engaged in sexual conduct in exchange for vape pens. Glenn also attempted to convince a child who was a friend of the second victim to engage in sex in exchange for vapes, but they did not meet in person.
“A law enforcement review of Glenn’s Snapchat account found conversations between Glenn and multiple other girls between thirteen and fifteen years old. In some of these conversations, Glenn offered nicotine or alcohol in exchange for sex or nude images.”
Two serial Snapchat predators, who were practically neighbors, locked up within days of one another. Surely now the children of Hamilton and Marion counties in Indiana can use Snapchat without being solicited for sex.
For immediate release, October 19, 2023, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Indiana:
“Isaiah Austin, 21, of Indianapolis, Indiana, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to coercion and enticement of two minors while required to register as a sex offender, and illegally possessing a firearm.
“In February 2021, Marion County probation officers conducted a compliance visit on Austin at his home. During their search, officers located a cell phone which contained multiple images and videos of child sexual abuse, as well as images of Austin holding firearms. Officers also uncovered text and Snapchat messages between Austin and a 14-year-old girl, beginning in early January 2021, less than a month after he was released from custody. In these text and Snapchat messages, Austin detailed sexual acts he wanted to engage in with the child and instructed her to send him sexually explicit images of herself.”
So in one small geographic area of central Indiana, during a time span of just a few weeks in the fall of 2023, three men were either arrested or convicted of child sexual abuse and/or child exploitation, and they all utilized the social media platform Snapchat as a tool to facilitate their depraved, criminal deeds. That’s without even mentioning another Westfield man who got 38 years for similar offenses made possible by the social media platform Kik. Maybe central Indiana is just a hotbed of child predators, but it’s probably more likely that this is happening in hundreds, if not thousands, of communities around the country. Setting aside the disturbing question of how there can be so many sexual deviants preying on American children, why is eliminating this threat not priority number one with Snapchat and other social media companies?
In testimony Tuesday before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on social media and the teen mental health crisis, Arturo Bejar, formerly of Facebook and Instagram testified that a survey of 13-15-year-olds on Instagram revealed that 13% of respondents had received unwanted sexual advances in the last seven days. The number is astounding. In any seven day period, a teenager has about a one in eight chance of being approached by a predator on Instagram. Given enough seven day cycles, it is a near certainty that a young person will receive unwanted sexual advances about every two months or so. It should be clear to anyone that social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Kik are cesspools of child exploitation and predatory grooming. Making these platforms safer for young people should be the top goal of executives at these companies above all other considerations. If a skate park or an arcade or a coffee bar existed where every week kids had a one in eight chance of receiving unwanted sexual advances, that place would be shut down. Social media companies should face the same threat.
If there is something 