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Nancy Grace
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Titania Jordan
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Nancy Grace
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Two little sisters lured by a kidnapper on Roblox. Is your child or your teen on Roblox? If so, listen up. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us.
Sidney Sumner
Two young teen sisters in Florida playing video games together, completely unaware that predators are watching from the shadows of online gaming platforms.
Nancy Grace
Watching from the shadows. That's one good way to put it.
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Do you know that predators spend 247
Nancy Grace
preying on our teens and our children? And they do it so easily, you might as well just hand them the Key to the front door because that's what they've got online. Straight out to special guest joining us, Sheriff John Boudenseek. He is the elected sheriff of Martin County, Florida. Sheriff, thank you for being with us. Would you say that's an accurate description that we might as well hand over the keys to the front door because these predators have a key right into your child's bedroom where they're playing Roblox.
Sheriff John Boudenseek
Well Nancy, you're 100% right. We just experienced that nightmare story that we tell parents over and over and over to try to avoid. But it happened right here in our county, right under their parents nose and thankfully we're able to get these girls back safely.
Titania Jordan
An Indiantown family desperately searches for missing 12 and 15 year old sisters they believe lured out of their home by a stranger on Roblox nearly six months ago. Family members learned the girls communicating with the stranger via Snapchat and believe they have the situation handled. They never expected the stranger to travel across the country in the midst of winter storm Gianna and take them worst
Nancy Grace
nightmare, worst a nightmare back to the sheriff. Sheriff, how old are the little girls?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
So one was a 15 year old and the other one was a 12 year old and they started on Roblox just playing games, something benign and innocent. And then this predator latched onto them and eventually moved them over to Snapchat and started doing the grooming that we talk about, often complimenting them, telling them that he loved them, sending gifts and before long he's driving 1500 miles all the way across the country to pick them up here in Martin county and take them back to Omaha, Nebraska.
Nancy Grace
Good Lord in heaven. I am going to go to our investigative reporter in just one moment. Alexis Torez. Check. Sidney Sumner standing by. But now to Titania Jordan joining us. She is the chief parent officer at Bark Parental Controls, author of Parenting in a Tech World. Titania, explain for everybody that doesn't know what is Roblox and my children especially my son loves Roblox. He played it a lot as a little boy. What is it?
Titania Jordan
Yeah, my son loves Roblox as well. It is a bunch of games, a bunch of games that are user generated, meaning you, Nancy or I could create create a digital game and anyone in the world could join that game. We create the design, we create the communications. It's a free for all and there's a lot of fun there but there's also a lot of bad. In fact at BARK we analyzed 11.1 billion data points over 2025 across children's text, email, social media, search, et cetera. And what we found was that Roblox was the number two highest ranked platform for confirmed risky contact. And the only platform that beat that was Snapchat.
Nancy Grace
Okay, I need you to repeat that to Tanya Jordan. To Tanya, joining us, chief parenting officer at Bark, which I have, I'm not an ambassador, I'm not a paid spokesperson. I have it, and it's very, very sensitive. I've given a million examples before about how I would get an alarm, typically to my son. And then when I would, I got one the other day, it said sex content. I'm like, what? I went and looked at it and it was the Nancy Grace show on Epstein. And he's a subscriber. He didn't watch the program, but the title came up and it flagged it. Bart flagged it. That's what BART is. But Bart aside, that stat you just gave about roadblocks is scary. Explain.
Titania Jordan
Yes. So at Bark, we send alerts over a variety of different categories, one of which is risky contact. If there is somebody contacting your child that you should know about, we will send you an alert. And the top platforms that we confirmed, over 11.1 billion data points. Number one, Snapchat. Number two, Roblox, followed by Instagram, TikTok, and Discord. This is happening at scale.
Nancy Grace
You know, back to you, Sheriff John Boudenseek joining us. He is the elected sheriff, Martin county in Florida. You know, suddenly you seem, you know, you look like a big husky guy. Suddenly you and your people, your men and women seem mighty small. When there are 83 million, 83 million confirmed users on Roblox, how many of them do you think? All of them are children and teens playing? No. And you've got you and your sheriff's force to fight them. When did you first learn about the two little girls missing?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
We learned that the two girls were gone. And within an hour, we knew we were in trouble. We had everyone out. We. It was a full court press. We had the FBI out with us. We had our analysts, our dispatchers, our detectives. We knew time was of the essence, as it always is in these cases. And thankfully, through some really smart quick thinking by our deputies, we were able to start getting leads straight out to
Nancy Grace
Alexis Tereschuk joining us, crime stories, investigative reporter. Let's start at the beginning. What happened?
Alexis Toreschuk
So these two sisters, 12 and 15, spent the summer playing video games online. They played on Roblox. They have a great time, lots of different things. Thing is, you can talk to strangers if you have it set up that way. So they start talking to a guy, he is really nice to them. He's first they just talk about the game.
Nancy Grace
Alexis, I'm sorry to stop you because I want to hear every fact, but right there I've got a question for Titania Jordan. She Alexis just said you can play with strangers if you have it set up like that. Now, because of you, Titania, I had heard about dangers online and whenever I would walk in, it was usually my son, not my daughter as much, but often my son would be playing. I'm like, who are you playing with? And he would go, you know, this one and that one from school and some other dude. I'm like, what other dude? It's probably like a 65 year old guy in his basement all alone in his underwear. Is that who you want to be playing with Fortnite or whatever and go, ew. And that is where we started playing only with people you know in real life. So Alexis Tereschuk is absolutely correct. You can have it set up a certain way so you don't play with strangers. You only play with people you know in real life. But if you don't know that, you know, very subtle but critical differentiation, you may be playing with some perv halfway around the world and not even know it. How do you set it up so you're not playing with strangers?
Titania Jordan
Titania, Any parent who allows their child to play Roblox needs to Google three Roblox parental controls. Take the time five to 20 minutes to set those up. Limit who your child can communicate with. Make sure Roblox knows your child's real age so it can at least do with the very bare minimum of putting it into what they think is an age appropriate experience.
Nancy Grace
Well, isn't it true, Titania, that the pervs can put in, I'm 10 years old too.
Titania Jordan
Well, what's interesting, Nancy, is because of the fire, Roblox has been under, they've rolled out facial recognition and identification and some of the time they get it right. But there have been multiple, multiple reports of people, adults and children, letting Roblox scan their face. And Roblox says you're a certain age and it's not the real age. In fact, my son's girlfriend did it and it said she was 18 and she is 15. And so there are problems there.
Nancy Grace
Back to you, Alexis Tureschuk. I just wanted to clear that up. Alexis, you have a little boy too, right? So perk up your ears so you can set it to not playing with strangers. Okay, now you said they were playing over the summer. Would you pick it up right there, please? Thank you.
Alexis Toreschuk
They were, they're playing over the summer. They start out, they are strictly on Roblox. They're not on any other site. They're playing games. They start talking with a guy. He starts complimenting them. He says, wow, you're really good at playing. And then he tells them to switch over to Snapchat, which is another app that kids can have, anybody can have on their phone. And that's where he starts grooming them. He starts saying things, calling them like, baby. And then he starts getting really aggressive. He sends them gifts to their home. He sends them food, sort of like, you know, you get ice cream delivered or lunch or snacks delivered, something that he's paying money for. So he knows their home address and he is now sending them gifts to their home. So they built up this whole relationship all over the Internet and they are actively talking back and forth with him and they have shared this private information with him so he knows exactly where they live.
Nancy Grace
I was just about to say Alexis. If he's sending ice cream, sandwiches and cookies and so forth to their home, he has their home address.
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Nancy Grace
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Nancy Grace
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Doctor Janie Lacey is joining us. Licensed psychotherapist, CEO of Life Counseling Solutions, author of how to Heal From a Toxic Relationship, host of the Resilient Professional, and you can find her@janielacey.com Dr. Janie, you gotta wade into the fray. What do you have to say about this?
Dr. Janie Lacey
Nancy My, my heart breaks for these families. You know, as I just heard my co panelists, what we're watching is the grooming behavior that's just in the digital world, right? These predators and this predator, I should say, he just didn't just randomly message these girls. He strategically built trust over time through this platform that from and my son plays Roadblocks as well. That as parents sometimes we just think is just a game. But that transition that we know from Roadblocks to Snapchat, it shows that there was calculated escalation. You know, he was isolating them. He built that false sense of intimacy, as we just heard, sending them gifts. And then he exploited that. He exploited that. And this is exactly how predators operate, whether it's online or in person.
Nancy Grace
Nancy, I'm looking at the screens. Our control room is playing again. Remember, Titania said that you create your own game. You can have football players, you could have a girls soccer team. You could be it could be in a dance class, it could be on Broadway. You create the game you want to play and you're seeing a lot of those choices. It's whatever you can imagine you create that game. Oh, there you go. There's race car. It could be Formula one, it could be nascar, all sorts of things. And doesn't it look fun? Sydney Sumner joining us. Crime stories, don't they look fun? All these scenarios, the football zone, the merch, the this that it's a preteen, a tween or teens dream.
Sidney Sumner
Absolutely. You can be anything you want. You can go anywhere you want and use correctly. Well, correctly is a vague term, but I see my nieces and nephews all the time playing together. They can meet up in this video game world and go play these games together even when they're not sitting together in the same home. So it really is supposed to be this wonderful tool, this online gaming experience for young children to be able to enjoy this together. But you have all of these predators, all of these grown adults using this as a hunting ground.
Dave Mack
Bright and early Saturday morning, two Indiantown sisters head to a park near their home. When their grandparents find out they may be meeting an online friend at the park, the girls are picked up and grounded, not allowed to leave home or have access to their phones. But when they're called out of their rooms for dinner around 6pm the girls are nowhere to be found.
Nancy Grace
Just hearing that run puts a chill down my spine. Joining me is a an acclaimed lawyer, Ben Powers, criminal defense attorney. And you can find him on Facebook at Legal Powers. Ben, thank you for being with us. This reminds me so much of Abby and Libby, the two beautiful little girls in Delphi who went out to a public park and they never came home. Ben. They never came home.
Ben Powers
It is a concerning issue with Roblox because what Roblox really is at its core is the Internet with a candy shop kind of veneer to it. It's a lot of cartoony characters, a lot of child friendly type images as far as the types of games you can make and the character types and things like that. It's definitely geared towards children, but what we're really talking about is the Internet with messaging capabilities that anyone can access. And it's just got a real flowery, nice kind of image to it. But it really is the Internet in the most broadest form with adults and children alike on there.
Nancy Grace
Yeah. And I guarantee you, Ben Powers, if all the adults knew how many pervs, how many typically men playing with the children, they wouldn't let their child touch it with a 10 foot pole. Back to special guests. Joining us, Sheriff John Boudenseek. He is the elected sheriff, Martin County. So when you first got the call who called
Sheriff John Boudenseek
the grandparents called the sheriff's office. At which point our row patrol, our first responders went out to the house and they just started a conversation. We thought initially that the girls were just simply out for the night around town. They started looking. The area they were in is a
Nancy Grace
small town out for the night around town. One of them is 12 years old. What do you mean, man?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
Around town, out for the night, out for the evening.
Nancy Grace
A 12 year old. Go, go back on the town.
Sheriff John Boudenseek
Go back to that. It's six o' clock at night. It's a small community, tight knit community. And they thought the girls had walked to a convenience store right by their house or they were close by.
Nancy Grace
Okay, so, so okay, Sheriff, that's a lot more acceptable than two little girls out on the town. Yes, got it. We did that many times, Sheriff, in the little community where I grew up, nothing but pine trees and soybean fields as far as you could see. And the big, the big thrill was to walk to the convenience store that was a good two miles one way. Okay, back to your story.
Sheriff John Boudenseek
So that convenience store by the way, is only about 200 yards from their house. They exhausted those resources immediately figured out the girls were in fact gone. The family was instrumental in this. They had been diligent like our co panelists said, and noted that they were in mid summer on chats on Roblox and Snapchat. And our detectives at that point are starting to enter into this scene and trying to figure out who any of these individuals were on social media.
Nancy Grace
Sheriff, I don't want to interrupt, but you said something about the family had ferreted out that they did not go to the convenience store. What had the family done to find them before they called you?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
The family and friends had done their own neighborhood search around the close knit community and realized that the girls were not there. They called our deputies, our deputies started asking the questions. Of course they realized that the girls were not in the immediate area. And then they started asking, are there any other options here? Is there any, anything else that could have taken place? And the family said, well, back in the middle of the summer months ago, we caught the girls on Roblox and then on Snapchat communicating with an individual. They didn't know who the individual was, they didn't know where they were from, but they knew they're communicating. And the family actually shut that down. Unbeknownst to them, the girls reignited that conversation on Snapchat and continued that conversation.
Nancy Grace
Well, hold on just a moment, Sheriff. I got another question for you. I got a question for you. You got me drinking from the fire hydrant here. So many facts at once. First of all, I know you've heard this too people second guess the family, such as, why did it take so long to call 911? Well, when your child is not in their room, you don't pick up your cell phone out of your pocket and call 911. You go look in the kitchen, you go look in the basement, you look everywhere else. You go in the front yard, you go in the backyard, you try to call their cell phone. You might call a friend, you might look around the neighborhood before you go, okay, this is bad. I got to call 911. The family did that. Then the family says that there had been a roadblocks problem over the summer and they shut it down. I guarantee you, Sheriff, the first time they realized there was a problem was probably when ice cream or some sort of treat arrived at the door from somebody they've never heard of. That's a real wake up. And the way you said it was absolutely accurate, but it makes the girls sound sneaky. All children think they know more than all parents. So the children think that they know this person and they're like, there's nothing wrong with him. So we're going to do it in secret. Mom and dad, they just don't understand. So they're not horrible, sneaky, unruly children. They just thought they knew better, but they didn't. Okay, back to you were saying the family told you about the communications over the summer. Then what happened?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
Our detectives asked to see the devices. They looked. Nothing on the devices. No gaming app, no Snapchat, nothing on there. And then one of our detectives actually had the thought, maybe I can redownload Snapchat and just see what's on there. And he did. And immediately after redownloading that app, this long thread of communication popped up. In that thread of communication was an individual's face who was. Was communicating with them and telling them, be careful. I can get in trouble for this communication. I'm coming to get you. Don't stand me up. I love you. And just a long thread. And. And in that, thankfully, he had taken
Nancy Grace
a photo of his. I'm sorry, I just, just got up off the floor. I fell off my chair. I cannot imagine, Sheriff, looking at my daughter's or my son's cell phone and finding out that she has been back and forth with a grown man.
Sheriff John Boudenseek
Grown man.
Nancy Grace
And I see his face looking right at me. I would Fall over. And this Sidney Sumner, this was the grandparents, correct?
Sidney Sumner
Yes. The grandparents were taking care of these sisters that day.
Sheriff John Boudenseek
At approximately 8:00pm on Saturday night, our road patrol deputies in Indiantown responded to a call for service and learned that there were two missing females. A 12 year old and a 15 year old. They had gone missing a few hours earlier, they believed the same day at about nine in the morning, these same two girls had gone to a local park there in Indiantown, had been found by a family member brought back to their home, punished. And part of that punishment was having two of their cellular devices removed from their person.
Sidney Sumner
What starts as an innocent connection on Roblox quickly deepens. A new friend gains their trust through games and chats, then pushes the relationship onto more private forms of communication.
Sheriff John Boudenseek
There was a potential suspect already in this case and that suspect had been identified through a Snapchat app back in 2025, in the middle of 2025. And the family members suggested to our deputies that an individual on that app may be involved in these girls disappearing.
Nancy Grace
Holy moly. No, I want to see the book in photo please. Because there he looks very Alexis Toreschuk. What if you go on and find out this is who your daughter. I want to see him again, please. Is chatting with. It's a grown man, that's not a 10 year old boy, that's not a 17 year old boy. That's a grown man.
Alexis Toreschuk
It is not a classmate at all. It is somebody that lived thousands of miles away. He is a full adult and he is chatting with not one but two, both of these sisters. Telling them he loves them, love bombing them really with gifts, but sneaky. Being really sneaky and telling them to switch over to a different app. Because Roblox the parents could stop at Snapchat, it's a little bit harder. And in fact the grandparents took what they thought was every step of protection after they got the girls out of the park and brought them home. Said, you're in trouble, you're grounded. Staying room. They took away their phones, but there was a tablet in the house, you know, like an iPad or something. And that way they were able to then access it. And they told him, they said, oh, we can't come, we can't meet you. And he insisted. He continued to say, I miss you, I love you, you have to come with me. He would not give up.
Nancy Grace
And little girls don't know how to respond to that. Dr. Janie Lacey, you tell a little 12 year old girl, I love you, I love you. You know, I could get in trouble for meeting you. Very Romeo Juliet type scenario. The family can't find out. That is extremely sneaky, and it is a ploy used by sex predators online
Dr. Janie Lacey
all the time. Nancy, you know, what happens is those predators, they lurk in these spaces where children congregate. And these platforms are so sophisticated. You know, when we think about what we're talking about, roadblocks, and the chat platform, social media, they look for those vulnerabilities, kids who seem lonely, that are seeking attention or going through some type of family structure. And then they'll present themselves as either a peer, a friend, someone who gets them, and they'll shower them with that attention, those compliments, that validation. And in this case, he likely positioned himself as someone cool, understanding, and maybe even a romantic interest. And then what we'll see is then they move those conversations, exactly what happened, off the original platform to more private spaces where there's less monitoring, and the messages in this case disappear. And this creates that secrecy. And then we'll see. They'll gradually introduce.
Nancy Grace
You know, I'm curious.
Sheriff John Boudenseek
Mm.
Nancy Grace
Alexis Torezha, you stated that he began love bombing them. What do you mean by that?
Alexis Toreschuk
It just is like an obsessive, relentless telling you I love you, telling you how great you are. He called them baby, called them sweetie. Sending gifts to the house, that is really just crossing a line again, because These girls are 12 and 15. These are little children, cannot drive, yet, as you see in the pictures where you're not showing their face, they're wearing, like, Christmas light necklaces. They're very young little children. But love bombing is just a consistent of just relentlessly telling you how much they love you. And it's not even a sincere love thing. It's just an obsessive statement.
Nancy Grace
Sidney Sumner, what type of things did he send to the home?
Sidney Sumner
Our understanding, it was mostly food items, like sweet treats or snacks, things of that nature.
Nancy Grace
Wow. Just what a teen girl would like. So, Sheriff, when you began, how did you manage to go back in time on the device to find this. This man's picture?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
It was the thinking of one of our deputies that just. They understand apps. They realized there's a potential. If we redownload the app, that the thread may still be there. And that's exactly what happened. The deputies got ahold of the digital device that these girls were using to communicate with that individual, saw that the Snapchat. Snapchat app was deleted holistically from the device, had the thought process to reload the device, and when they did, they could See a constant threat of communication between this individual and these two young girls to include the suspect who you see behind me driving to Indiantown, Florida to pick these girls up and leave.
Nancy Grace
Sheriff, what went through your mind when you saw this face appear in the history
Sheriff John Boudenseek
that we're dealing with? Nothing but trouble here. Nothing good is going to come out of this incident.
Sidney Sumner
The conversations quickly move to Snapchat. Daily messages growing emotional bonds and even food deliveries sent to the girl's home, blurring the lines between online friend and predator.
Sheriff John Boudenseek
This individual lived in Omaha, Nebraska, and was potentially just giving them little things that they, that they needed and just making them feel good about themselves. He complimented them through the app called the older girl baby, referred to her romantically, and then sent her things. So that's all indicative of what we see in some of these.
Nancy Grace
Sheriff, you stated that this guy lives in Omaha, Nebraska. Wouldn't that be, what, a 15 to 20 hour drive?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
It's 1500 miles away. It's a 23 hour drive.
Nancy Grace
Good gravy. To Ben Powers. Joining us, veteran criminal defense attorney. Ben, if you're the defense attorney here, you got a lot of explaining to do. He had 23 hours to plot and plan the kidnap of two little girls, one 12 years old.
Ben Powers
Well, so it's, it's an interesting legal argument or situation with this story because one, I would want to know more specifically what the communications were. If they're just saying positive things and suggesting or even sending that I'll buy you food or sending ice cream sandwiches, as unnerving as that is, there's technically not anything illegal in something like that. But if the communication is more sexual and there are criminal code violations for that. But then also with the kidnapping, I mean, if they go voluntarily, voluntarily, you know, kidnapping is against someone's not will, not with their will. And so if he's been love bombing on to where they go voluntarily, it's all going to come back to the communications, because communications are where his criminal exposure is. The actual riding at a car with them. Short of something more, since it does seem that they went voluntarily with him, I'm not sure there's a criminal offense that's been alleged.
Nancy Grace
Ben Powers, let me ask you a question. Do you think I just fell off the turnip truck?
Ben Powers
No, ma'. Am.
Nancy Grace
Okay. You do know that I practiced criminal law as a Prosecutor for over 10 years? As a Fed and a state violent crimes prosecutor? Yes.
Ben Powers
Yes, ma'. Am.
Nancy Grace
Okay. Mr. Powers, isn't it true that someone under the age of consent cannot give consent? That's why they call it the age of consent. Right. So if you're 12 years old or even 15 years old in most jurisdictions, you cannot consent to, you can't, let's see, you can't enter into a contract. You can't go buy a car, you can't buy a house even if you have a million dollars. You can't even buy a pack of cigarettes. Isn't that true, Ben Powers?
Ben Powers
It is, but age of consent would be for like some type of sexual contact. But just getting in a vehicle is something that they can consent to doing and especially when we're talking about false imprisonment or kidnapping inherently requires without their consent. I think that's going to be a problem for the prosecutor with that type of charge under these facts. But I'm sure those communications will.
Nancy Grace
If he wasn't something wrong with it when they had to come home from their first aborted meeting with him that morning and he was saying, don't let your family find out, that would suggest to me that he knew what he was doing was wrong. So I think I've got someone that's going to disagree with you, Ben Powers. Sheriff, is it okay to lure little girls into your car and drive away?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
It absolutely is not. And of course this case will be litigated. But no. 12 and 15 years old. There's a reason why we have an age of consent for other things. And you hit the nail on the head. These girls were not mature enough and old enough to make that decision. The girls initially appear to have intended to hook up with him in the morning at the park. That did not happen. They were disciplined, brought home, their devices were taken away, and our suspect was then milling around Indiantown for a period of time.
Nancy Grace
Isn't it true, Sheriff John Boudenseek, that he, the perp, excuse me, the alleged perp was saying comments like, I drove all this way, please don't leave me hanging. Come on, I've driven 20x hours to see you. You got to come back. I mean, he was really pressuring a 12 and 15 year old little girl.
Sheriff John Boudenseek
Not only that, Nance, he also reminded them of the severity, what he was getting them into. He knew he could get in trouble for this, so he pressured them and reminded them that what he was doing was illegal and he could get in trouble.
Nancy Grace
What was he saying, Sheriff?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
He was just saying, if anybody finds out, I could get arrested. If anybody finds out, I could get in trouble. So he was warning them. He was trying to recruit them to be secretive so they could carry out their Plot of him picking them up and leaving our area.
Nancy Grace
And isn't it true, Sheriff, he actually took a picture of himself at the Indian town Circle K and sent it to the girls?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
He did. And that was an important piece of our puzzle. Thankfully, he did because it put him in our gas station. We're able to get a tag number from. From being at that gas station. So it was a critical piece of evidence for us.
Nancy Grace
And then what happened?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
So again, we called everybody out. We knew as in any of these missing persons cases, time is of the essence. And we called our analyst out. We were able to do some orders to the Snapchat specifically and get some IP addresses and really start tracking back devices. Keep in mind, the girls didn't have devices. So the only one that had devices was this mysterious face that we had a picture of, but we had no idea it was. So we were able to start getting some device information and then start narrowing in on our suspect through the tag number and that device he was possessing.
Nancy Grace
Now, isn't it true he was communicating with your detectives but didn't realize it? Or did he realize it?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
The family, unbeknownst to us at that time, reached out to him on Snapchat and was asking him about the girls. So he did what you see a lot of these criminals doing. He. He started feigning his concern. Oh, please, I'm worried about them. Please let me know that they're okay. So he starts this conversation all the while he's driving northbound on I75 with these girls in his custody, and he's feigning that he cares about their safety. He's acting that he's worried that something bad is going to happen to him, and he's the problem. He's driving him down the road.
Nancy Grace
So wait, let me understand this. Sheriff. Sheriff John Boudenseek. He's writing, where are the girls? Where are they? What happened to them? I'm worried. Help. I want to help you find them. And all the time they're in the car and they've got the pedal to the metal up 75, which goes all the way from Florida all the way to New York City, right?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
That's exactly right, yes.
Nancy Grace
What happened then, Sheriff?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
Well, we knew we had to reach out to other jurisdictions. We started in the state of Florida. Florida High Patrol was. Was contacted. They could not quite catch him before he exited the state. He exits our state in the Georgia. And thankfully, the Georgia Highway Patrol was contacted by us and were able to make a traffic stop on that vehicle and take our suspect into custody and most importantly, recover those girls for us safely. 6:45 he's leaving Indiantown. And right around 1am in the morning on Sunday morning, the Georgia State patrol was able to stop that vehicle just inside of the state of Georgia. So I'm trying to do the math that fast. Five or six hours.
Nancy Grace
Sheriff, you acted, you acted quickly, you acted decisively and you saved the girls lives. What happened when you finally saw the girls and saw the alleged perp?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
We had a collective sigh of relief amongst us. The family came out, they were crying, they realized what could have happened. They were thanking us profusely. And we just felt that elated feeling of doing our job, doing it effectively. And we knew what we had accomplished.
Nancy Grace
You know, Sheriff, if you never do another good thing, which I doubt, you have done this and you have saved two girls from we don't know from what, got a pretty good idea and you definitely got your angels wings. Finally I get to report a story with a happy ending. But it's not always that way, is it Sheriff?
Sheriff John Boudenseek
They really are. We're still reeling from a missing girl in 1993 from our area. That's 30 plus years ago. We're still feeling the effects of that. There is no application online that's safe. No application online that's safe. Be it a gaming ad, be it Snapchat, being it something as user friendly as Instagram or any social media application. If you can communicate with somebody away from your house in the quiet of your own room, they can be a follower.
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Nancy Grace
Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Straight out to Titania Jordan. Joining us, Chief Parent Officer Bart Parental Controls. She is the author of Parenting in a Tech World. Titania. Again, thank you for being with us, Titania. We have to explain how to help students, children, tweens. But before you start, I want you to hear this story. And it's not just a story. This is real. Parents believe their little boy met someone on Roblox, left to go meet with them. The next thing we know, he's dead. He committed suicide. He jumped from a bridge. Now Roblox is saying we're not involved. There are claims, roadblocks. Not involved. The parents say yes, they are. We don't know the truth yet. Dave Mack what happened?
Dave Mack
Nancy what we have is we've got a little boy who is using is on Roblox and he meets somebody you know on by using on Roblox and is communicating with this individual and gets lured away. He's last seen leaving or actually last seen at a train station with his backpack on and carrying something. That's the last thing that that we know. And Roblox is there he is. That's Thomas Medley. He's 15 years old. And it's one of those shocking things, Nancy, that we've been talking about for years about young people being lured away from the safety of their homes and with parents who are actively involved and still predators have a way of getting to our young kids. And that's what apparently happened here with Thomas Medlin. He's 15. When he leaves school, you know, he Left like at 3:30 in the afternoon right after school gets off. And he's last seen crossing the bridge, the pedestrian walk on the bridge. And that's it. That's the last photo we have of him. And then he's gone.
Nancy Grace
Which leads me to my friend Alicia Kovaskiewicz, who actually survived a horrific kidnap and a brutal torture.
Alicia Kovaskiewicz
I spent a lot of time online talking to my friends from school, and at the time it felt like it was a clubhouse. Three way calling was still a thing, and I remember explaining it to my mom. And it was like three way calling with as many people as you want. And it was in the family room and should have been safe, but I didn't have the tools to keep myself safe and neither did my family. And then there I was in a chat room and somebody messaged me and I thought that was a boy around my own age. So I trusted that this person was who they said they were. I was who I said I was. Why would somebody lie? That never came up in my mind. And he immediately began to groom me. And of course, I didn't know it at the time. There were no red flags and none that I could be aware of. He began acting as though he was my friend. We sat around the dinner table, we laughed. It was the holiday. We had a family meal, which we would have every year. It was a good luck meal, and my mom and dad were there, my brother and his girlfriend and my grandmother. So it's a really beautiful evening. The snow was falling and I asked my mother if I could be excused from the table. And instead of going upstairs to lie down, I slipped out of the front door, past the Christmas tree that was up, and into the coldest, darkest, iciest night of the year. And to tell you how effective grooming it is, I was a child who was really quite scared of the dark, hated the cold with a passion, and never went outside alone after dark. Yet completely out of my character, I walked out of that front door and didn't take my coat. I left the door open just a little bit because I was planning on coming right back through it and out into my neighborhood. And this is my neighborhood and it should be safe. And again, it was beautiful. The snow was untouched and there were Christmas lights in the windows. And it was a really beautiful, quiet, peaceful night, which soon became my hell. I walked up the street just about a block or so and if I turned around, I could still see my house. So I thought, okay, well, there's my house. I must be safe again. Neighborhood. This is my familiar area. And finally this little voice spoke up in my head. My intuition, which I ask everybody to listen to and to teach your children to listen, to pay attention to it, because it is there for a reason. I heard this little voice say, alicia, this is dangerous. Go home now. And I turned around, and next thing I knew, I was in a car. And this man was squeezing my hand so tightly that I thought he had broken it. And he was barking commands at me, be good, be quiet. The trunk's cleaned out for you. He showed me that he had handcuffs. People ask me, when did you know that you were in danger? When did you become afraid? And it was absolutely immediately I knew that I was no longer in control of my life.
Nancy Grace
And then the story, believe it or not, gets worse.
Alicia Kovaskiewicz
He just continued to drive. And there were toll booth after toll booth. And I can remember the sound of the car stopping at this house. And the car stopped. And he rushed out of the car, came to the other side, and dragged me out and into this house, down a flight of stairs, which felt like they went on forever and ever and ever, and that they were a descent into hell. And that's exactly what they were. He got to the bottom of the stairs, and there was a door with a padlock on it. He unlocked the door, pushed me inside, picked me up like I weighed absolutely nothing, propped me up on this table, forced me to look at him, and said, this is going to be really hard for you. It's okay to cry. And then he turned on the lights. And this room was blanketed. These walls were blanketed with these devices that I certainly couldn't understand, but that they were there to torture somebody, and that somebody was me. And this has been called by the media a dungeon. And again, that's what it was. After that, he removed my clothing and placed a locking dog collar around my neck with another padlock. And then that was the first night that he me. After he me, he reached down, grabbed a chain attached to the collar, and then fell asleep.
Nancy Grace
Back to Titania Jordan. Joining us, Chief Parent Officer Bark parental controls. I've got so many more true life narratives about children being lured online. Please help us, Titania. What can we as parents do?
Titania Jordan
The first thing you can do, the best free tip I have for anybody, is to keep connected tech out of your children's bedrooms, out from behind closed doors. The second thing I would say is Please do not assume not my child. It could happen to any child. The smartest children, the most loved children. It can happen to any child. So your child needs to know they can come to you with anything dangerous or confusing online and you're not going to freak out, but you will help them navigate the landscape. That is the access you have given them, which is the entire world. Now, you don't have to give them access to the entire world. There are safer pieces of tech out there. There are parental controls like bark. You don't have to give your child an open iPhone, for example. You can go with a safer smartphone for a child that lets you set parental controls and time limits. And please, please, please do not just hand over tech to your child and think they'll be okay. You have to do the work. You have to be the parent.
Nancy Grace
When you're talking about parental controls, believe it or not, a lot of people don't know how to find them. They're not tech savvy, nor should they be. Why should they be? You know, Titania, moms and dads all over the country, all over the world are working all day, they're coming home, they're trying to put a meal on the table or order. Yeah. And just holding it together. If you say find the parental controls, they're like, what? What is she saying? Explain it.
Titania Jordan
Yes. Okay, so thankfully, because of AI, the ability to turn on parental controls is much easier. So go to Google, go to ChatGPT, go to Claude and say, hey, my child has this type of phone, uses this app or wants to has this gaming console. We have this home Internet service provider. Help me, give me a step by step guide for how to turn on the parental controls for my household. And it should give you step by step by step by step. Now, it won't always be 100% accurate, but the bottom line is ask your preferred search engine how to turn on the parental controls for the things your child actually uses. And before that, don't be afraid to delay. Delay is the way. They don't have to have Snapchat in sixth grade. They don't have to have a smartphone in eight grade. You are the parent, you are in control. And if and when it's time for your child to access certain things, look up what is the safest way for my child to use xyz, the safest way for my child to text, the best way to track their location. Use search to your advantage and be empowered that you are not alone in making safer choices.
Nancy Grace
Titania, Jordan, you're amazing. Thank you for any and all advice guys. Also, we are releasing a one on one with Titania where she gives us a tutorial going through all the ways you can keep your children safe online. And now we remember an American Hero, Deputy Sheriff Adam Davis, Bell County Sheriff's Texas. He passed away in the line of duty and leaves behind grieving parents Carlos and Guadalupe and son Lance. American Hero Sheriff Adam Davis Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye friend.
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Nancy Grace
is an iheart podcast guaranteed human.
In this gripping episode, Nancy Grace explores the chilling case of two Florida sisters, ages 12 and 15, who were lured and kidnapped by an adult predator they met through the online gaming platform Roblox. Together with law enforcement, experts in online safety, psychological professionals, and survivor advocates, the episode unpacks how online grooming happens, where digital safeguards fail, and what parents and guardians can do to protect children in an increasingly connected world. The narrative also pays tribute to swift law enforcement efforts that resulted in the safe recovery of the girls, and it spotlights the all-too-common risks children face online.
[02:37–08:23]
Notable Quote:
"Predators spend 24/7 preying on our teens and our children. And they do it so easily, you might as well just hand them the key to the front door."
— Nancy Grace [02:56]
[03:31–07:17, 08:31–09:59]
Notable Quote:
“Roblox was the number two highest ranked platform for confirmed risky contact… The only platform that beat that was Snapchat.”
— Titania Jordan [05:17]
[11:18–14:10, 15:10–16:24]
Notable Quote:
“He strategically built trust over time… that transition from Roblox to Snapchat shows that there was calculated escalation.”
— Dr. Janie Lacey [15:40]
[17:52–20:55]
Notable Quote:
“They took away their phones, but there was a tablet in the house… and that way they were able to then access it.”
— Alexis Toreschuk [26:54]
[19:53–22:18, 24:03–24:46, 30:04–39:30]
Notable Quote:
“Time is of the essence, as it always is in these cases… through some really smart quick thinking by our deputies, we were able to start getting leads…”
— Sheriff John Boudenseek [08:00]
[32:07–36:14]
Notable Exchange:
Nancy Grace: “Isn’t it true that someone under the age of consent cannot give consent? That’s why they call it the age of consent.” [33:33]
Sheriff John Boudenseek: “It absolutely is not [legal]. And of course this case will be litigated. But no. 12 and 15 years old. There’s a reason why we have an age of consent…” [34:54]
[39:00–40:03]
Notable Quote:
“Finally I get to report a story with a happy ending. But it’s not always that way, is it Sheriff?”
— Nancy Grace [39:30]
[43:15–49:43]
Notable Quote:
“To tell you how effective grooming is—completely out of my character, I walked out of that front door and didn’t take my coat… that night soon became my hell.”
— Alicia Kozakiewicz [45:45]
[50:03–52:42]
Notable Quote:
“Please, please, please do not just hand over tech to your child and think they’ll be okay. You have to do the work. You have to be the parent.”
— Titania Jordan [50:03]
Grooming Tactics:
“He starts getting really aggressive. He sends them gifts to their home. He sends them food, sort of like, you know, you get ice cream delivered or lunch or snacks delivered… So they built up this whole relationship all over the Internet and they have shared this private information with him so he knows exactly where they live.”
— Alexis Toreschuk [11:18]
Parenting Reality Check:
“All children think they know more than all parents. So the children think that they know this person and they’re like, there’s nothing wrong with him. So we’re going to do it in secret. … They just thought they knew better, but they didn’t.”
— Nancy Grace [22:18]
Law Enforcement Resourcefulness:
“Maybe I can redownload Snapchat and just see what’s on there… this long thread of communication popped up… telling them, be careful. I can get in trouble for this… I’m coming to get you. Don’t stand me up. I love you.”
— Sheriff John Boudenseek [24:03]
This episode confirms the urgent danger posed by predators lurking on platforms popular with children and teens. The abduction of the Florida sisters was only prevented from ending in tragedy by swift, coordinated law enforcement and a degree of family vigilance. Nancy Grace and her guests urge parents to be both tech-savvy and proactive, using all available parental controls and keeping ongoing, judgment-free communication with their children. As illustrated by both survivor stories and law enforcement, the risks are real—but with awareness and preparation, tragedies can be prevented.
For further resources, Nancy Grace mentions a dedicated one-on-one tutorial with Titania Jordan on setting up parental controls safely and effectively.