FAIRFIELD COUNTY, Ohio — A Bremen man is facing federal charges after he allegedly traveled to North Carolina, kidnapped a 12-year-old girl he had met online, and was discovered with the child in Ohio after crashing his car into a highway median.
Virgil Larson, 45, is charged with kidnapping a minor, sexual exploitation of a minor, receipt or possession of child pornography, coercion and enticement of a minor, and travel to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor. If convicted on all counts, he faces up to life in prison. Larson is a registered sex offender with at least two prior related convictions.
According to federal charging documents, in early April, the FBI received a tip about a missing 12-year-old girl from North Carolina. Investigation revealed that Larson had been communicating with the victim through Snapchat and text messages.
North Carolina law enforcement was still at the girl’s home interviewing her parents when the family received a call from the Hocking County Sheriff’s Office — on their daughter’s cell phone. Deputies confirmed they were with the child and that she had been found in the front passenger seat of a vehicle driven by Larson.
Larson had crashed his car into a median on Highway 33 near the Hocking and Athens county line. When deputies responded to the single-vehicle crash, Larson claimed he had fallen asleep at the wheel. He told officers the girl was a friend and claimed she was 18 years old. When the victim could not provide her own birth year, officers separated her from Larson and learned she was 12.
A forensic review of their online communications revealed the victim had been threatened — told that others would be killed if she did not send sexually explicit images.
Larson was arrested by Hocking County authorities on April 7 on local charges and has remained in custody. The federal charges supersede the local ones.
He is scheduled to appear in federal court today at 1:30 p.m.
All defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.