SHELBYVILLE, Ind. -- A missing 13-year-old girl was found in a Shelbyville motel room with a 23-year-old man from Toledo, Ohio, Friday – a meeting that apparently had its roots in a "role playing" community on Facebook.
Watch our video in the player above for our update from Wednesday on this case.
The girl – who RTV6 is only identifying as a student at Shelbyville Middle School – was reported missing by her mother after school officials contacted her saying a man claiming to be her brother had attempted to pick her up from school.
School Resource Officer Adam Stafford later reported that he was approached by a male asking, "Where do the kids get let out? I'm here to pick up my sister." In a supplemental narrative filed along with a probable cause affidavit, Stafford said the male was unable to tell him where his sister lived or where he was supposed to meet her.
The male, later identified as 23-year-old Cory Alan Hockaday, of Toledo, Ohio, was eventually escorted off school property by staff.
The girl's mother would later tell police her daughter had met Hockaday, who allegedly went by the name "Wyatt Stone" online, a year earlier on Facebook and that the two had talked online. She said her daughter told her Hockaday was 17.
Police were led to the motel room where Hockaday had apparently taken the girl after she contacted her mother about her whereabouts. There, officers found evidence the two had engaged in a sexual encounter, which they both admitted to after questioning.
In the probable cause affidavit, police describe Hockaday as "very cooperative." He reportedly told police he "had a disability and it was hard for him to understand things."
"Hockaday said he was sick to his stomach and worried about going to jail," according to a written report by Shelbyville Police Detective Jason Brown. "I asked Hockaday if he was able to understand his actions of getting a bus ticket from Ohio to Indianapolis, and then getting a cab to Shelbyville, and then getting a room at [the hotel]. Hockaday said he understood, but said he was worried because of the age difference."
Brown said Hockaday told him he knew the girl was 12 years old when he started talking to her online. Hockaday told police the two had met on a "role playing" community on Facebook, and that their conversations had become "very romantic."
Following his interview, police took Hockaday into custody on a preliminary charge of felony child molesting. He was being held at the Shelby County Jail without bond.
