Jan. 11—The Rogers County Sheriff’s Office helped arrest two people Tuesday who law enforcement say lured a 13-year-old over the internet.
The girl, who lives in the Rogers County portion of Collinsville, is safe at home, said Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton.
Walton said the girl left home to visit a man she had been speaking to on a messaging app. Her parents reported her missing Tuesday, and after investigators located her phone in a Tulsa trash can, they tracked her down to a home in Broken Arrow.
There the sheriff’s office, assisted by other agencies such as the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and the Tornado Alley Child Exploitation Trafficking Task Force, arrested a man and a woman.
Eric Lee Blanchard, 21, is in custody at the Tulsa County Jail. Rose Ann Blanchard, 26, bonded out of the county jail Tuesday. She faces charges of harboring a runaway juvenile and obstructing/interfering with a police officer.
“He’s 21 years old, full of bad intentions, and you know, he had family members helping him,” Walton said. “Not making it easy on us for our job.”
Walton said it was concerning to find the girl’s “brand new” phone abandoned in a trash can, but he was happy she was back home safe with her parents.