Family thought 14-year-old was dead, feds say. She’s found with Michigan sex offender
A 31-year-old is going to prison after federal officials said he traveled to meet a 14-year-old with the intention of engaging in sexual acts.
Keith Daniel Freerksen, a registered sex offender from South Haven Township, Michigan, was sentenced to 20 years in prison Feb. 5 after pleading guilty to travel with intent to engage in a sexual with a minor and enticement of a minor in November, prosecutors said.
Freerksen’s lawyer declined to comment when McClatchy News reached out on Feb. 7.
He met the teen girl online and began talking to her on various platforms like Omegle, Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok between May 2023 and January 2024, according to his plea agreement.
The conversations were sexually explicit, and Freerksen had the girl produce sexually explicit material and send it to him, prosecutors said.
In January 2024, he traveled from his South Haven Township home to Mount Vernon, Washington, to engage in sexual acts with the teen, the plea agreement said.
Soon after, the teen ran away from home, according to a criminal complaint.
For a month, the teen’s family searched for her, calling every morgue in the state thinking she was dead, according to a Feb. 5 news release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.
“What happened in this case is every parent’s nightmare – a predator comes into the home via social media and computer screens and manipulates your child to run away,” U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman said in the release. “This defendant secreted a child away, leaving a distraught family searching desperately for their loved one. When the victim should have been involved in normal teenage activities, the teen was instead manipulated and ensnared by the defendant.”
By examining information from Uber rides bought for the teen by an unknown person, officers were able to identify Freerksen as a suspect, prosecutors said.
They then traced his car along northern states using license plate readers, learning he had taken the teen with him back to Michigan, officials said.
South Haven Township officers executed a search warrant and found the girl at Freerksen’s home before arresting him, officials said.
“Freerksen was undeterred by his previous sex offense conviction, corresponding imprisonment, and registration obligation. The rapid recidivism between Freerksen’s release from prison following child pornography offenses and the dedicated months he spent manipulating and enticing (the victim) is evidence he is either unwilling or unable to refrain from sexually abusing minors,” Assistant United States Attorney Cecelia Gregson said in the release.
Mount Vernon is about a 60-mile drive north of Seattle.
This story was originally published February 7, 2025 at 5:20 PM with the headline "Family thought 14-year-old was dead, feds say. She’s found with Michigan sex offender."