Agents tracking the teen’s online activity had noticed the girl’s World Of Warcraft account had been logged into in Florida after she was reported missing, the sheriff’s office said. — Photo by Axville on Unsplash
A missing Ohio teen was found 1,000 miles from home when her World Of Warcraft video game account was activated in the home of a 31-year-old man in Florida, a sheriff’s office said.
Investigators from the FBI reached out to local law enforcement in Dunnellon on Jan 3 for help with a missing person’s case of a 16-year-old girl from Ohio, according to a Jan 4 news release from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
Agents tracking the teen’s online activity had noticed the girl’s World Of Warcraft account, a “massively multiplayer online role-playing game”, had been logged into in Florida after she was reported missing, the sheriff’s office said.
Another gaming account, belonging to 31-year-old Thomas Ebersole, had been active from the same home address, deputies said.
When deputies went to Ebersole’s home, he first said that he didn’t know the teen, but later said he was in a “romantic relationship” with the 16-year-old, according to the sheriff’s office.
Ebersole told deputies he had driven up to Ohio to meet her and then drove them back to Florida, according to the sheriff’s office.
He said he “was going to hide her in his home with plans for her to become his wife”, deputies said.
Ebersole showed deputies messages on Discord, an online messaging platform, that described his plan to meet the teen in Ohio “and engage in sexual activity despite knowing that he was committing a crime”, the sheriff’s office said.
Ebersole was arrested on charges of travelling to meet a minor to engage in sexual activity, interfering with child custody and sheltering an unmarried minor, deputies said.
Dunnellon is about 90 miles north of Tampa. – The Charlotte Observer/Tribune News Service
