John Rush, 46, of Pacific, Mo., had spent weeks chatting online with a girl from Davenport, Fla. Correspondence between the two reveal Rush referred to himself as “Daddy” and the girl as “Babygirl Lauren.”
On Thursday, Rush decided to take their interaction a step further and decided to pick up the girl at Davenport. Surveillance footage shows Rush’s black Honda Accord entering and leaving the girl’s subdivision just before 6 a.m. Another camera caught the tag numbers off the Honda.
The Polk County Sherriff’s Department then sent alerts to police agencies across the country. A few hours later, Kentucky State Police stopped Rush at McCracken County, where he was arrested.
The girl was found unharmed and her parents drove to Kentucky to pick her up.
“Now where would this have ended up in Missouri: like we have seen on the national news for years, and us not knowing what happened to her? asked Sheriff Grady Judd during a press conference. “Or does he get bored with her and says there’s nothing else to do but kill her?”
On Friday afternoon, police combed Rush’s house in search of evidence. He could face charges across several states including some at the federal level.
Back in Pacific, neighbors expressed shock at the revelations regarding their neighbor, who worked as a manager at an ice cream shop.
“To know that there’s someone that’s that depraved, living so close to you, and living so close to all these children, it makes me wonder if I don’t need to start walking the neighborhood and watching,” said Alicia Medlock. “Who’s watching these children?”
