Trigger Warning: The article contains details of child abuse and sexual assault. Reader discretion is advised.
A 13-year-old girl from Louisiana, who used Snapchat, vanished. She was found days later, 1,000 miles away, stuffed in a box inside a Pennsylvania basement. The girl’s alleged captor, 26-year-old Ki-Shawn Crumity, found her on Snapchat itself!
And that’s where the outrage begins. How could a child move across three states, be groomed and trafficked, without a digital alarm? How did a social media platform built on disappearing messages allow this? The child was groomed by Crumity, who convinced her to leave home under the pretense of helping her get adopted by a “trusted adult.” She traveled from Louisiana to Georgia, then to Washington, D.C., and finally to Pittsburgh. There, she was assaulted in Crumity’s basement and was hidden in a box covered by a sheet.
The FBI and Pittsburgh Police SWAT raided the home on October 30, 2025, after a tip from the Marshals. She was alive but traumatized. The child told investigators Crumity had given her alcohol and marijuana edibles while sexually assaulting her multiple times.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said on a Facebook post –
“She was groomed, exploited, and then s——- abused by strangers who found her online.”
Crumity is now charged with human trafficking, sexual assault, and several other crimes. At least two other suspects, including a 62-year-old man in Georgia, were arrested for helping transport the girl.
SVU detectives, working w/the FBI Violent Crimes Against Children Task Force, arrested Ki-Shawn Crumity in a case involving a juvenile victim.
Crumity, 26, of Pittsburgh, faces numerous felony & misdemeanor charges.
Full info: https://t.co/xZqLAzK1hd pic.twitter.com/5JjQjjLufJ
— Pittsburgh Police (@PghPolice) October 31, 2025
In the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Brighton Heights, residents woke up to flashing lights and officers. “I saw a girl (…) very small (…) being pulled out,” one neighbor told local outlet WWL. “It’s scary. Crazy. I’m glad they got the guy,” said another.
But if this can happen to a 13-year-old in Louisiana, could it happen to someone else’s child next? Who’s protecting kids online? Snapchat’s disappearing may be fun for teens, but it’s a predator’s dream come true.
Experts have long warned that such features make it easier to groom, manipulate, and control minors without evidence. Professor Devi Sridhar, writing in The Guardian, warned that “830,000 young people worldwide are at risk of social exploitation and abuse every day.” Platforms like Snapchat and gaming apps, she said, are “designed to be (…) addictive (…) but largely without (…) safety.”
Share this with a parent or guardian who is not nosy and allows their child to be on Snapchat.
1) Snapchat has vanishing messages.
2) No age verification.
3) No ID verification
4) Automatic location tracking.
5) A hidden vault with a separate password
6) Full of Predators pic.twitter.com/8V4bKdz8jJ
— Protect Your Children Inc (@ProtectChldInc) November 3, 2025
Parents can’t monitor what they can’t see, and companies like Snap Inc. won’t ever do enough. Advocates are calling for tighter government regulation, like Britain’s upcoming Online Safety Act, which enforces child protection standards. Voluntary safety policies aren’t cutting it. So if your app can help groomers travel 1,000 miles, you have a liability. Crumity faces charges of trafficking, assault, and furnishing alcohol to a minor, which could put him behind bars for life. His co-conspirators face charges of kidnapping and delinquency.
But justice won’t undo the trauma or answer how a billion-dollar company failed to stop it. “This is just one example of the dangers of social media and of human trafficking,” Murrill said. But it’s also a warning for every platform still pretending this isn’t a crisis.
