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This is exactly why I don't allow my kids to play/chat with kids online.
My son loves Minecraft and believes there are only kids on the other side of that chat. I have had several talks with him about the dangers of this "innocent fun play/chat" thing. This is a perfect example of how things are not what you think they are and I will be sharing this story with my kids to hopefully instill fear in them.
A 24-year-old Illinois man has been arrested after police say he was found in a Georgia hotel room with an 11-year-old Florida girl that he met while playing/chatting on an online computer game called Minecraft.
“Within the game, you can use a headset to chat with the people you’re actually playing with. So that’s how the first initial contact we believe was made.” A Bibb County Sheriff’s spokesman said in a Monday news conference.
“This is someone that she’s been communicating with online under the guise of being a female and basically has just pulled her into a trap, so to speak,” her father told WESH-TV.
Police say that the man drove all the way from the Chicago area to meet the girl. They were allegedly on their way back to Illinois when they stopped at the hotel in Georgia.
John Peter Byrns, was arrested after authorities tracked the missing girl’s cellphone and discovered her with him at a Holiday Inn Express in Macon, Georgia.
Investigators say that charges are pending against Byrns, who is being held at the Bibb County Law Enforcement Center without bond. He has not hired an attorney and has not yet entered a plea.
The girl was reunited with her parents Sunday evening. She was not physically hurt.