An Arizona man has been arrested in Nebraska for the alleged kidnapping of a 13-year-old Utah boy he met on the online gaming platform Roblox.
According to the Independent, Aaron M. Zeman, 26, was arrested at a gas station at around 3am Wednesday morning after an attendant reported his vehicle. Zeman, who also goes by the names Tadashi Kojima and Hunter Fox, was found in the car with the boy.
An Amber Alert had been issued by Layton City Police Tuesday after the boy went out late on Monday night to meet with the suspect.
The boy’s family told police that the 13-year-old had been having "sexual and inappropriate" conversations with a man online on Roblox three weeks before the alleged abduction, and that the man had allegedly invited him to join a Discord chat, according to an affidavit obtained by local news.
The boy’s father reportedly informed police that there was an exchange of photos and texts of a sexual nature exchanged between the two on Twitter and Discord and that they then shifted the conversation over to FaceTime.
Grand Island police initially responded to a call from the Git ‘N Split gas station in Grand Island at around 3 am Wednesday morning after Zeman’s suspicious behavior caught the attention of an attendant.
Upon arrival, officers discovered the license plate was linked to an Amber Alert issued in Layton City, Utah the day before.
When ordered to exit the car, Zeman at first refused to do so. The suspect is now facing a second-degree felony charge of kidnapping and a class I misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest.
Beth Cooper, a close friend of the teen’s family, told Fox13 that the boy is a handsome, brilliant young man.
"He comes from a very loving household, safe environment, he’s grown up with two loving parents his entire life," Cooper told Fox. "This just isn’t one of those scenarios that he’s trying to run away from a bad home. He was manipulated by someone pretending to be someone they were not."
Cooper also said Zeman had asked the boy to bring his passport, which he reportedly did.
"You have an older man posing to be someone else, confusing a 13-year-old minor, things that he’s not aware of in life," Cooper added. "He doesn’t understand yet why when someone asks you to leave your house, you don’t go."
The suspect was believed to be heading to Arizona or Texas.
Layton City police say they are working to reunite the victim with his family and that a joint investigation between Layton City and Grand Island police is ongoing.
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