AURORA | A 14-year-old girl from Aurora who was missing for more than a week was located in Las Vegas Wednesday, in what police described as a case of online grooming, manipulation and interstate abduction.
“This whole situation came about from chat rooms and social media,” said Aurora Police Investigations Commander Mark Paulino. “The entire world has access to your child through their electronic device, and we need to remember that as parents.”
Paulino said the girl was first reported missing June 16, when her family called 911. The department’s Investigation Bureau immediately opened a missing person case, which eventually escalated into a multi-agency effort involving local, state and federal authorities.
“We found out later that about 2 a.m. Monday night, Christian Williamson, one of the suspects, had driven to the girl’s house and picked her up,” Paulino said. “He took her to a hotel in Lakewood.”
The investigation found that the situation involved two adult male suspects, Christian Williamson and Cameron Scruggs, and a possible female accomplice, who is still being investigated. According to Paulino, Scruggs drove from Las Vegas to Colorado on June 17, where Williamson handed the girl off to Scruggs. Investigators said they believe an unidentified adult woman was traveling with Scruggs at the time of the incident.
By June 19, as the case gained urgency, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation issued a Missing Endangered Person Alert. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also issued nationwide bulletins in hopes of expanding the search beyond Colorado.
Additional evidence surfaced on Sunday when the girl’s parents discovered portions of her journal.
“They let the detectives know that they found a journal, the victim’s journal, and detectives, at that point, received only portions of the journal,” Paulino said they received those portions through screenshots. “There’s a detailed plan of the runaway. There are some names in there of possible suspects. There’s other pertinent information that detectives start working on.”
By Monday, detectives had the full journal in hand and began reading through its entries, uncovering names, locations and links to social media profiles. By Tuesday, they identified Williamson and Scruggs as their primary suspects.
On Tuesday, law enforcement contacted Williamson in Kremmling, with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Kremmling Police. He was arrested and charged with internet sexual exploitation of a child and internet luring of a child, and is currently in custody at the Grand County Jail. He was able to provide information that helped the authorities locate Scruggs, who was believed to be back in Las Vegas.
That same day, Aurora investigators coordinated with the FBI and Las Vegas Metro Police. Surveillance led to Scruggs’ arrest and the location of the victim inside Scruggs’ Las Vegas residence.
Scruggs faces kidnapping charges in Colorado and charges of statutory sexual seduction by a person 21 or older in Nevada. More charges against both men are expected as the investigation continues.
Paulino said the case highlights the dangers children face online and the role parents play in getting involved and monitoring their online actions.
He said the police department recommends that families adopt a three-pronged approach to managing their children’s online presence, involving open lines of communication, consistent monitoring of devices, and prompt action when red flags appear.
“If you’re afraid or uncomfortable in checking their device, then that’s a problem,” he said. “We were very, very fortunate that we found her. It could have had a very bad ending, but it didn’t.”
Paulino said that parents can also visit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as an online resource, offering tools, guides and safety education for parents.
“This was a frightening and traumatic event, not just for the victim, but for her family, her schoolmates, her teachers and for the entire community that came together to bring her home,” he said.
The Aurora Police Department said that they share credit for the successful outcome with the collaboration of numerous agencies, including the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, FBI offices in Denver and Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Metro Police, Homeland Security Investigations and local police departments across Colorado.
We established multiple social networking social media applications that they utilized for their conversations and their contacts online with each other,” Police Lt. Seth Robertson said. “A lot of them are very common social networking sites and social media sites such as Discord and Reddit, but at this time, we don’t have a specific site that they utilized as a cautionary.”
The investigation and collection of evidence are ongoing.
“The best time to try is yesterday,” Paulino said about parents protecting their children online. “The second-best time is right now.”