A 21-year-old Indiana man was arrested for raping an 11-year-old girl he met on Tinder, police said.
Travis McAdams, from Greendale, was charged with felony rape and child molesting after he was collared on Dec. 14, authorities said. He was being held at the Dearborn County Jail on a $200,000 cash bond, according to Fox 19.
Police said the arrest came months after the young girl’s mom alerted investigators of the alleged attack in March, police told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
McAdams began chatting with the child on the dating app Tinder back in December of last year, according to a probable cause affidavit.
“It’s my understanding the 11-year-old had portrayed herself as a 16-year-old on the Tinder app and once they had met through Tinder they began to chat through SnapChat,” Dearborn County Prosecuting Attorney Lynn Deddens said.
McAdams met the girl at Greendale Cinema sometime in late December 2017 and last January. During their encounter, the child said, she went to use the bathroom and when she returned, McAdams allegedly put his arm around her neck, covered her mouth, and raped her in the back of the building, the affidavit states.
The girl told police she met with McAdams again because she was afraid he would harm her.
“She advised me that she was scared of McAdams and that’s why she continued to see him a couple of other occasions after this because she was afraid of what he might do to her,” Detective Sgt. Kendle Davis said.
Davis said McAdams was aware of the child’s age and continued to see her anyway.
Following McAdams’ arrest, several more women have come forward with similar claims, police said.
In the wake of the alleged rape, police warned parents to keep track of their children on social media.
“Watch their social media accounts. There are apps out there now to look different. If you look on a child’s app and it shows a clock, it’s actually a hidden file where kids can hide SnapChat accounts or Tinder accounts and other similar accounts, so their parents might not even be aware they have it,” Davis said.