Dad Rescues Daughter, 12, From Being Lured Into Car of Would-Be Pedophile She Met Online

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A cautionary tale has resurfaced owing to its timeless message for kids and parents everywhere.

A California father awoke into a nightmare when he found his 12-year-old daughter missing from her room. His lightning-fast response led him to locate and rescue his daughter moments before a suspected sexual predator would have lured her into his car.

In June 2015, Tim LeBlanc woke up in the early hours of the morning and decided to check on his kids. As reported by CBS Los Angeles, Tim entered his 12-year-old daughter’s bedroom to check on her and realized that she wasn’t in her bed; her bedroom window was cracked open.

“[T]his window was open about three inches or so,” Tim recalled. “I was scared to death. Everybody tells me I’m overprotective, but apparently I’m under-protective.”

Tim, panicked, got into his truck with his eldest son and set out to search his Riverside County neighborhood. He didn’t have to go far.

The worried father found his 12-year-old nearby and just in the nick of time. She was about to step into a vehicle with an adult male stranger she had met online and had been chatting with via a messaging app called KiK.

The man had pretended to be 16 years old; he was really 27. “He was obviously a grown man,” said Tim, as per the Daily Mail.

It transpired that the 27-year-old had been sending Tim’s daughter inappropriate messages and explicit photos and had enticed her into meeting him with the promise of jewelry and clothing. Tim, incensed, got out of his truck and apprehended the predator, who was yelling and professing his innocence.

Tim dodged a punch from his daughter’s would-be kidnapper before knocking him to the ground with a single blow. He took a photo of the 27-year-old lying unconscious on the sidewalk and restrained him until police arrived.

“You hear about it, but never really think about it,” Tim told NBC San Diego. “Just sick. Just mentally ... Just a predator, you know?”

Tim’s heroic fatherly intervention led to the suspected sexual predator’s arrest. According to NBC Los Angeles, the man was identified as Scott Stilwell, of San Diego, California, and was taken into custody by Riverside County sheriff’s deputies on two felony charges.

Stilwell’s family claimed to the press that the 27-year-old had mental health problems, adding that they were “blown away” by the incident with Tim’s daughter.

Tim chose to share his daughter’s near miss as a cautionary tale for other young ones and parents everywhere. What happened to his 12-year-old, he said, could conceivably happen to anybody.

Speaking to NBC San Diego, Tim reflected: “[T]he world we live in, there are such sick people, there are some horrible people out there. There’s also sex trafficking ... I probably wouldn’t have a daughter if I hadn’t caught this.”

Nowadays, the internet, multiplayer video games, social media sites, and messaging apps have made it easier than ever for sexual predators to connect with young victims under false pretenses.

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Forensic pediatrician Dr. Sharon W. Cooper from the University of North Carolina wishes to empower parents to know that they control their kids’ access to the internet. Parents should, she says, always exert that control.

“Research has shown that parents who mediate online behavior have the most resilient children,” Cooper explained to The New York Times. “It is about time online (not too much), content (age-appropriate and prosocial), and parental empowerment (access is a gift, not a right).”