New Zealand man who traveled to Virginia to find 14-year-old girl he met online accused of kidnappin
Public Safety
New Zealand man who traveled to Virginia to find 14-year-old girl he met online accused of kidnapping, child porn production
By Rachel Weiner
February 7 at 1:39 PM
A man who police said traveled across the world to break into a Virginia teenagers home, then was shot in the neck by the teens mother, has been indicted on kidnapping and child porn charges.
Troy George Skinner, 25, flew last June from his home in New Zealand to Goochland, Va., according to law enforcement, to find a 14-year-old girl he had met a few months earlier in an online gamers forum.
Initially charged with armed burglary with intent to rape, a grand jury on Wednesday indicted Skinner on four counts of production of child pornography and one count of kidnapping and attempted kidnapping.
The girl had told Skinner she no longer wished to communicate, police said, after he spoke to her for three or four months through a chat service called Discord. During that time, according to the indictment, he convinced her to produce pornographic videos and images of herself. ... If convicted of the child porn charges, Skinner faces at least 15 years in prison; if convicted of kidnapping, he faces at least 25 years behind bars.
....
Rachel Weiner tries to cover Alexandria's federal court from a small windowless room with no cellphone access. She sometimes ventures outside to write about crime in Alexandria and Arlington. Follow
https://twitter.com/rachelweinerwp