[Regnum] A man has been arrested in the United States for kidnapping a 15-year-old schoolgirl and holding her in his home for four years, The Washington Post reports."Owen Lars Anderson, 37, lured a teenage girl from her Wisconsin home and held her in his Virginia home from June 26, 2022, until late May of this year. He allegedly barred the girl from school and physically and sexually abused her," the August 1 report reported.
They clarified that, according to the girl, the man threatened to kill her and her family if she tried to escape.
In May, the girl finally managed to call the police and report her abduction. She said she met Anderson online when she was only 12 years old. He listened to her complaints about her parents and assured her he wouldn't harm her. Then he began demanding nude photos from the girl and blackmailing her.
Police in Blacksburg, Virginia, said officers took the injured student to safety.Anderson is currently in custody, facing 60 charges, including strangulation, kidnapping, and possession of child sexual abuse material.
| The Daily Mail has more |
[Name Redacted], now 19, was rescued 730 miles away from home at a residence in Blacksburg, Virginia on May 23.
She had been abducted by Owen Lars Anderson on June 23, 2022 after she met up with him at a movie theatre in Chicago, Illinois, according to a criminal complaint obtained by the Daily Mail.
Anderson, now 37, and
He arranged for an Uber to pick her up from her family's Milwaukee home and take her to the movie theatre.
That's where police say he kidnapped her and disposed of her cell phone, as well as a burner phone he had previously gifted to her.
He had been holding her captive, and sexually and physically abusing her at his house in the small Virginian mountain town ever since, police alleged.
Anderson has been charged with kidnapping, child enticement and abduction of a child in Wisconsin. He is also facing 55 counts of child sexual abuse material possession in Montgomery County, Virginia, court records showed.
Blacksburg police were responding to a 911 call for an alleged domestic disturbance at Anderson's home on May 23, the criminal complaint said.
During the investigation into the incident,
She told police how Anderson lured her to the cinema with false promises of offering her a better life, the filing said.
She told Anderson about the struggles and alleged abuse she was facing in her family home and he convinced her to leave, police said.
The FBI has taken over the digital evidence in the case, officials told WDBJ.
Anderson was arraigned on the local charges at the Montgomery County Courthouse on Tuesday and is currently being held in Western Virginia Regional Jail without bond.
He is awaiting extradition to Wisconsin to face the charges filed there.
Officials told the news outlet that federal charges are also possible and that the charges in Montgomery County could possibly be absorbed in a federal case.