RICHLAND CO. – What was charged as a kidnapping in Richland County may turn out to be not exactly that if the defense in the case can show that the suspect was mislead by a social networking/online dating site.
In a circumstance that is becoming all too familiar, it appears that Blake A. McGillem, 28, of Washington, Indiana, took a social networking profile seriously when he believed the girl in it was truthfully stating she was 18, and met up with her in Olney and took her on a date.
As it turned out, the girl was 12…and her “date” was reported as an “abduction” and just a day or so later, was charged that way, with McGillem jailed for more than a week, and now charged formally with Kidnapping.
He was set for a Preliminary Hearing on February 18, and so by the time this issue is distributed, things might already have changed for McGillem.
But whether he can get over the hurdle that has challenged a few other young men in downstate Illinois – that of convincing a judge and prosecutor that he genuinely didn’t know the girl was lying about her age – is a hurdle best left to defense attorney, in this case public defender Todd Rietz, who has recently moved from the position of assistant state’s attorney and who, because of that, might not be inclined to do the best of jobs in presenting the “I didn’t know” defense…which, in this case, appears accurate.
Reported missing
Not much is being released about how the circumstances of January 31, 2016, actually transpired.
The public was first apprised of the matter, however, with a release from the Olney Police Department about a missing person, Brayanna Hargraves (in some material, the name is spelled without the “s” at the end of Hargraves), on the evening of that Sunday date.
The notice by OPD stated that Hargraves had last been seen at 3 p.m. that Sunday, wearing a pink zip-up jacket with a white dress and grey leggings. It gave a description of the 12-year-old and asked that anyone with any information give the OPD a call.
The notice did not mention what Hargraves was last seen doing (leaving with friends, attending a church activity, shopping at Walmart, etc) nor did it say whether her family/friends suspected her whereabouts to be, what kind of vehicle she had perhaps been seen in, nor with whom she might have been, as sometimes these notices do in order to give the public as much information as possible.
By early Monday, February 1, all of Richland and surrounding counties were looking for her, largely due to her young age and the mysterious-sounding way her disappearance was presented by law enforcement.
Safe and unharmed
However, by mid-to-late morning, word was coming in that Hargraves had “been returned to her home” (located in the 400 block of North Boone in Olney) and was “safe and unharmed.”
According to court paperwork on file, she was returned shortly after 6 p.m. that evening.
Apparently McGillem was apprehended shortly thereafter, in Lawrence County: As of 11 a.m. Feb.1, a vehicle he had been driving had been impounded at KBJ’s convenience store just off U.S. 50 outside of Bridgeport in Lawrence County.
He was taken into custody after Bridgeport police had him stopped, and turned over to Richland County authorities on an arresting charge of Kidnapping.
McGillem had a probable cause/detention hearing on Feb. 3, which bound him over for trial on the Class 2 felony and held him on a $100,000 bail ($10,000 cash bond).
He was ordered, should he be able to make bond, not to have any contact with Hargraves.
This screencap was all that was left of the multiple social networking and dating sites on which Brayanna Hargraves had set up accounts falsely indicating that she was of-age (18). The 12-year-old was the subject of a missing persons report on Sunday, January 31, when in actuality she had merely gone out on a three-hour date with someone she’d met on the tawdry online dating site, PlentyOfFish.
Had a date
It was at this point, thanks to Facebook postings, that the truth began to emerge about the situation.
A woman identifying herself as McGillem’s aunt, Donna Byrer Detty, advised later on the evening of Feb. 1 that all was not as it appeared.
It was her claim that her nephew had met Hargraves on the online dating service, “PlentyOfFish,” which is one of the premier services that people can join and meet up with people in/around their area.
Detty stated that Hargraves had been listing herself on this and on other such sites as being 18 years of age.
She further went on to state that Hargraves, presenting herself as an of-age teen, had invited McGillem to her house in Olney, and that Hargraves’ “disappearance” at 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 31, was actually a date the two had arranged online…which explains the subsequent return of Hargraves to her home on Boone at 6:11 p.m. per his court paperwork.
“To make matters worse, as if they could get any worse for this poor young man,” Detty wrote, “ he had absolutely no idea of her misrepresentation until he brought her back home from their ‘date’ and was subsequently arrested for Kidnapping!”
A citation on file in McGillem’s court paperwork bears this out.
Gets worse
However, Detty said, it “gets worse.”
She stated that Hargraves “has not only done this before, but is still currently listed on other dating sites and is presenting herself to be 18 years of age.”
Disclosure investigated these claims, and came up with several sites where Hargraves was indeed claiming to be 18 (despite the very youthful appearance of her face on each page; however, some older teens do still look very young, so these days, it’s hard to tell). As of press time, Disclosure had been able to find a defunct Facebook page, as well as a defunct Google+ and defunct Instagram page, wherein Hargraves made the claim that she was 18 (the pages had been terminated by the time this issue went to press and screencaps were not taken prior to the pages being taken down.)
She had, however, forgotten to take down her Badoo page.
Badoo is a social networking site that was founded in 2006 and originated in London. Promoting itself as a “meeting people” site (a nicer word for online dating), it features the “Hot or Not” series that in 2012 made it very appealing during its U.S. release.
However, it seems it’s just another tawdry site that, like PlentyOfFish, allows people to peruse other users’ profiles and hit on them online. As Detty posited in her post on Disclosure’s Facebook page, “Do any of you know how lucky this girl is that this particular young man picked her up instead of some rapist, or murderous creep?”
Disclosure was unable to verify the PlentyOfFish profile because to view it requires an active profile.
However, the Badoo profile (featured here) was enough: It clearly displays that the 12-year-old was portraying herself as 18 years of age.
Not the first
McGillem was bonded out of the Richland County Detention Center by his aunt on Feb. 11. Neither of them would comment about the case when asked by Disclosure via electronic messaging.
Detty’s comment under Disclosure’s Facebook post about the initial incident remained, however, and one of her observations rings true about the 12-year-old: “Her family should be thanking him for drawing attention to this girl’s dangerous obsession at the expense of his entire life being ruined.”
Others in the area have run into the same sort of situation.
In late 2012, a young Wayne County man, Cody McVaigh, now 24, was hit up on a social networking site by a girl purporting to be 19 when she was really only 15. The two had a “date,” had sex during the date, and the girl’s family subsequently found out and had McVaigh arrested.
The beleaguered ISP investigator Rick White (see related story) endlessly harassed McVaigh, claiming (falsely, according to McVaigh) that he’d extracted a confession from the boy.
With McVaigh being kept locked up for months on a high bond, charged with Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse/perpetrator being more than five years older than the victim, a few months after being able to post bond, McVaigh ultimately pled to a Battery Causing Bodily Harm misdemeanor on Feb. 18, 2015.
Whether such a plea will be offered to McGillem remains to be seen.
As far as can be ascertained, there is no known remedy at law for a 12-year-old posing as an of-age person online.