NCST Editor December 2023 Incident Leads to Investigation
In early December 2023, the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office was dispatched to a residence within the county after E911 received a report of a missing person. The caller reported that their grandson, 14 at the time, was missing from his residence. The grandparents informed deputies that arrived that their grandson had been speaking with someone named ” Chris ” on the internet a lot.
When deputies arrived at the residence, they were unable to locate the teenager and began investigating his possible whereabouts. As part of this investigation, family members shared what information they had on the person the teenager had been speaking with, known to them only as ” Chris, ” as well as accounts used by the teenager to contact him.
As deputies returned to the Sheriff’s Office to complete paperwork for a missing person report, they were contacted by the grandparents who stated the teenager had returned to the residence.
With the teenager located and safely back at the residence, an investigation began into the interactions between the teenager and the ” Chris ” person. This investigation determined that the interactions were illegal in nature, and investigators worked to identify the individual.
The investigation eventually identified the suspect as a adult male located in Indiana.
Suspect Identified and Extridicted
Joel Christopher Seagle, 59, of Fort Wayne, Indiana
Investigators identified Joel Christopher Seagle, 59, of Fort Wayne, IN as the suspect who had illegal interactions with the Coweta County teenager.
On November 20th, Seagle was extradited from the Allen County, IN jail and brought to the Coweta County Jail where he was booked on the following charges.
- Child Sexual Exploitation (F)
- Employ/Use Minor to Engage in/Assist Person in Sexually Exp (F)¹
Seagle is currently being held without bond at the Coweta County Jail, where he awaits his first appearance with a Magistrate Judge.
¹ This charge is one I hadn’t seen before. It’s defined as the following in O.C.G.A. 16-12-100(B)(1):
It is unlawful for any person knowingly to employ, use, persuade, induce, entice, or coerce any minor to engage in or assist any other person to engage in any sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing any visual medium depicting such conduct.
