A 22-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault and taking inappropriate photos of a 13-year-old girl he met on a dating app.
According to The Dallas Morning News, Kenneth Earl Jackson III was arrested on May 20 and charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child and possession of child pornography. He is also charged with harboring a runaway child as the girl involved had been reported as a runaway.
On May 10, a 13-year-old girl was reported as a runaway in an East Texas county. The Walker County Sheriff’s Department notified the Texas Department of Public Safety about the girl on May 12.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, the sheriff’s department had tracked a device they believed was in the girl’s possession. On May 20, the department tracked the device to an apartment in the 2100 block of Empire Central Drive, around Harry Hines Boulevard in Dallas.
In the apartment, authorities found Jackson, who said he picked the girl up in Huntsville on May 11 after meeting her on a dating app.
Jackson told officers that he allowed the girl to stay at his apartment without verifying her age or trying to contact her parents. According to the affidavit, Jackson admitted to having sexual intercourse with the girl multiple times during her stay at his apartment.
Upon searching Jackson’s phone, police found nude images of the girl, per the affidavit.
Jackson was arrested and taken to the Dallas County jail. His bail is set at $101,500. Â
