A 12-year-old girl from North Carolina was rescued in Ohio following a crash involving a registered sex offender, revealing a broader interstate kidnapping attempt police are now investigating.
A 12-year-old girl from North Carolina was recovered in Ohio after a single-vehicle crash drew deputies to a scene in Hocking County on 5 April, according to local authorities and reports from CBS News Pittsburgh and WHIO. Officers found the child in the car with Virgil E. Larson Jr., a 45-year-old registered sex offender, and say the discovery led them to uncover a kidnapping case spanning state lines.
Investigators believe Larson contacted the girl through social media while pretending to be a boy her age, then arranged for an adult posing as the boy’s father to collect her, according to the sheriff’s office account reported by multiple outlets. Deputies said the girl had been reported missing from her home in North Carolina the previous evening, and the mismatched stories given after the crash prompted further checks that connected the two events.
Both Larson and the girl were taken to hospital for evaluation. Larson was later booked into the Southeast Ohio Regional Jail and charged with kidnapping and resisting arrest. Court records cited in local reports show bond set at $1 million on the kidnapping count and $10,000 on the resisting-arrest charge, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for 15 April.
The case fits a wider pattern of attempted abductions and rescues reported in recent weeks across the US, including incidents in South Carolina, Kansas and Los Angeles where victims escaped or were found before suffering further harm. Authorities continue to investigate the Ohio case with assistance from North Carolina agencies and the FBI.
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