Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Man Raped 6-Year-Old Girl in 'Five Below' Store Bathroom: Prosecutor

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

Robert DeWeese, 36, is accused of raping a 6-year-old girl in a family bathroom of a Five Below store in Warren County, Ohio. The grand jury indicted DeWeese on several charges including rape and gross sexual imposition for the February 2026 incident. DeWeese has been convicted of similar crimes in the past. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes through the allegations in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Chris KlotzCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

No, didn't swing out. It's not a bad thing. Yep. Deputies slap the cuffs on Robert Deweese after a six-year-old girl said he raped her in the bathroom of a popular store. Now Deweese is in jail, and it's not his first brush with the law. We'll go through the terrifying claims made by prosecutors and how detectives say Deweese trick the little girl into opening a bathroom door. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy.

There's a six-year-old girl who went through a really, really scary experience in the bathroom of a store in Ohio. What detectives say happened to her with her mom in the store could happen to anyone, and that's really the terrifying part of this. A man named Robert Deweese is in jail, accused of raping that six-year-old girl, and he's charged as a repeat violent offender, meaning he's done it before. The case takes us to South Lebanon, Ohio. That's about 30 miles north of Cincinnati and a mall where the girl and her mom were shopping. It was February 6th when this girl and her mom were shopping at the Five Below store, you know, one of those stores where everything's $5 or less. An incident report shows the call came in at 307 p.m. A woman reported that a male touched her daughter in the bathroom. The next note states, no camera in store, then unknown if the male is there. After that, unknown what the male looked like.

The daughter is six years old, according to the report, and the next comments say they're in the front of the store. Now, the report goes on to say that the girl didn't see the man at that time, but unknown who he was. But somehow, deputies tracked down a suspect. Yeah. Have a seat. Watch your knee. It was after 11 p.m. that same night that the deputies found Robert Deweese and took him into custody at a home nearby. No, good swing out.

Send him back to. Yep. We're going to walk up that big glass door. First room on your left if it's not occupied. Have a seat in that little round chair. Robert Deweese was booked into the day. jail on a gross sexual imposition charge, but now the charges have been upgraded after the prosecutor presented the case to a grand jury. Deweese now faces two counts of rape,

two counts of gross sexual imposition, one count of kidnapping and one count of abduction. There are specifications that come with the charges. The grand jurors found that Deweese is a sexually violent predator. Deweese has been convicted of sex offenses in Ohio going back to to 2007. In June of 2021, Deweis was charged with gross sexual imposition a probable cause affidavit stated on June 4th, 2021, an 11-year-old girl and her mother were at Dollar Tree in Lancaster, Fairfield County, Ohio. The girl reported that the suspect later identified by both the girl and her mother by photo array as Robert Deweese followed her and her mother around the store while talking to himself. The girl stated while waiting in line, Dewees began to rub her back and tell her

she was pretty. Dewees then began to rub her buttocks and thigh area. Both the girl and her mom gave a detailed description of the perpetrator. Lancaster police developed Deweese as the suspect, and the girl and her mom identified Dewees as the perpetrator via photo array. So this is a similar type of incident. A woman and her daughter reported that Deweese follow them around a story. and that he began to rub her rear end and thigh area. Now Robert Deweiss, a 36-year-old man, is accused of sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl in a family bathroom at a five-belo store. Warren County's prosecutor David Fornshell told a local TV station that the girl had an accident, so her mom locked her in that family bathroom of the store, and they agreed on a secret knock for the door.

The mom, according to the prosecutor, went out into the store to buy her daughter new pants. But Dewees had eaves dropped on the conversation and mimicked the knock on the door. The girl, according to the prosecutor, opened the door, and that is when Dewees walked in and committed the assault. But the girl, she started screaming. It was something she had apparently learned in Girl Scouts, and that alerted people to what was happening. Thank goodness. So I'd like to bring in Chris Klotz. He represents survivors of both child and adult sexual abuse to discuss this case.

Chris, thanks so much for coming on. This is a really disturbing case. This could have happened to any one of us who has kids. You know, you're walking around a store, you know, and your child has an accident. And then mom, I guess, you know, according to what the prosecutor said, mom locks the doctor. in the bathroom and says, hey, I'm going to go get you some new pants. She's going to go buy the pants at the store, come back to the bathroom. And she says, I'm going to do this secret knock. And the prosecutor tells the local news station, WLWT, that this guy, DeWeese, Robert Deweese,

overhears and eavesdrops on the secret knock, does the secret knock. And that's how he gains access to this bathroom. And then the allegation is that he rapes this. little girl. I mean, what is your response to that as somebody who represents survivors? I just can't imagine. It seems like this happened very, very quickly. Yeah, and Jeanette, thanks for having me on. So this is just one of the many, many unfortunate, disgustingly bad cases where you have a parent who's trying to do the right thing, who thinks that they're putting their child in a safe place while they're going just out to the store to try to get some clothes. Everybody's had a child who's raised kids, who's had an accident at some point, and parent tries to do the right

thing. Child's locked in the bathroom, secret knock to get back in, and then you've got this absolute creep who is overhearing or like stalking them to figure out how to get to this little girl. And so it's just, it's a tremendously bad cautionary tale about even when you think that you're doing the best that you can do in a circumstance, you really, really need to always, always be mindful of who's around because you never know when you're out in a public setting. And so this is just a, this is an awful case. Yeah, it's a terrible case. And you really don't know who's walking around, you know, in a store watching you, following you around. And you may not even realize it because you're just a mom in a store walking around with your child. And it's really a cautionary tale, too,

to really be aware of your surroundings. You know, it stinks that in this day and age, you might need to be kind of like looking over your shoulder. But you kind of have to do that. And you can get so easily distracted and be so focused on what you're doing. Well, listen, you know, kind of looking at it from the standpoint of the mom, child has an accident, which is an embarrassing thing for the child. And you want the child to feel okay.

and safe and you want to do, your instinct as a mom is to try to fix that situation. And so that is probably something that was, you know, the mom really wanted to go ahead and get, you know, some clean clothes for the child. I don't know how bad the accident was, but, you know, we've all had kids. And so we know that that can be really traumatic for the child. So your focus is on trying to take care of your child. And while you're doing that, there's some predator out there who is like, eyeballing y'all to see if you're in a vulnerable position.

And, you know, I hate to, I, I never like to sound paranoid, and I always want people to live their life, but you just have to be super, super aware of your surroundings and know that there are really bad human beings out there who are not putting you or your family or your children first. They're putting themselves and their absolute, you know, twisted desires first. And so you just have to be aware. And so I think the mom was trying to do the right thing. I think they just had a very sophisticated predator that was lurking around waiting for an opportunity. One thing, Chris, that is really creepy about this. And of course, this is Robert Deweese.

He's innocent until proven guilty. But there are some specifications that the prosecutor and the grand jury indicted this guy on. And it's the fact that he's basically like a repeat offender. And they're calling him a, you know, a violent sexual predator. and he has convictions for gross sexual imposition going back to 2007 in the state of Ohio. And he's been arrested in several counties. The prosecutor says he just got out of prison. You know, he got out of prison like three days before this happened.

And I want to put up on the screen part of a probable cause affidavit from a 2021 incident in which he was convicted and served some time. And it talks about a similar incident in a store. This was a little bit different. But in this, it says on June 4th, 2021, an 11-year-old girl and her mother were at Dollar Tree in Lancaster, Fairfield County, Ohio. The girl reported the suspect later identified by both the girl and her mother by photo array as Robert Deweese followed her and her mother around the store while talking to himself. The girl stated while waiting in line, Dewees began to rub her back and tell her she was pretty. Dewees then began to rub her buttocks and thigh area. Both the girl and her mom gave a detailed description of the perpetrator.

Lancaster police developed Deweese as a suspect and the girl and her mom identified Deweese as the perpetrator via photo array. I mean, this is weird. I mean, this guy has been convicted in the past of lurking around stores. following girls and their moms around. So I'm assuming that we may see surveillance video at some point in time of this guy at the five below, potentially following this woman and her daughter around this five below store. I mean, this is really, really creepy. I would not be surprised at all if once the police and the state attorneys get all of the evidence

that they see that this mom and daughter were followed at some point around the store, and then he saw an opportunity, and he listened in on their conversation, and he probably was just pretending to be in the background. I would not be shocked at all if they actually end up with video evidence that he was actually following them around, or maybe even that he had been in the store following other people around until he saw an opportunity, and he just kind of was paying attention and seeing who might be vulnerable.

So it really is shocking, surprising. It's the last thing that you're thinking about sometimes as a parent. And again, I see so many of these cases where parents have the best intentions, they're trying to do the right thing. And then you have somebody who's just absolutely sick, who has got a motive to do something harmful to a child, sometimes to an adult, and takes advantage of it. So, again, not to sound completely paranoid,

but we do we do have to as parents and responsible adults be aware of our surroundings and always always pay attention and this guy de weis according to the prosecutor he'd been out of prison for three days when this happened on february 6th i mean three days i mean if that you know we're still trying to get some confirmation on that the timeline but if that pans out that's that's shows like a total lack of self-control and whatever maybe treatment this guy was going through, if he is indeed found guilty of these charges, it didn't take. Yeah, well, so something else that I was doing a little bit of looking into it before we jumped on to talk about it so I could know a little bit more about it. And it also seems that he had a prior offense where he was on probation and then violated his probation by committing another sex offense against a child.

So this is not somebody who is, you know, this is their first time, probably not even their second, third, or fourth time. This is somebody that has a adult, appears to have an adult lifelong problem. And it raises the question of as a system, where's the system breakdown? Because this guy isn't somebody that you're like having to wonder about, you know, is this a good guy or a bad guy. This is somebody who is a bad person who evidenced by the track of the prior criminal history, that I have seen in the media, you know, based on that, this is not somebody that was a surprise that might be a repeat offender. As a system, you know, it really raises issues. What can we do as responsible citizens to make sure that the system actually can track people like this and do a better

job? Because usually when somebody's released from prison, they're coming out, they're coming into a probation setting. They're going to come out and meet with a probation officer. They're going to come out and meet with a parole officer. Where was the supervision in this particular case? And why, you know, was he not on some kind of monitoring? Why was he not on some type of, you know, direction that he not go to certain places? I know maybe stores would not be a prohibited place, but, you know, there seems to be a systemic failure with somebody who has this kind of track record. And it's something that we really need to ask about and talk to our legislators and representatives and our law enforcement people about what do we do concerning people who have this type of track record?

It shouldn't be happening time after time after time after time. This little girl, though, should be commended for how she handled this. Apparently, she started screaming. It was something she learned in scouts. You know, I mean, this had to just be terrifying for her. Sure. Well, and to her credit. So, you know, maybe through the year, scouting has gotten a bad, you know, kind of a bad knock because there's been some cases with, you know, the scouting program.

But I do want to say that wherever she learned this skill set about being vocal, it's a program that is taught to young people about how to protect themselves when they're in a situation exactly like this. It's called the Roar program, R-O-A-R as an acronym. And if she learned it through scouting, that's great. I wish more children were given this information. But Roar stands. It's ROA-R. The R stands for, remember privates are private. The O stands for it's okay to say no.

Sometimes children don't know it's okay to say no to a grown-up. The A stands for always tell secrets to a responsible or a safe adult. And then the R is for Raise Your Voice, which this little girl obviously did. And to her credit, she was able to stay present of mind enough to remember what she had learned. And, you know, thank goodness that she learned that because it probably ended up saving her from something much, much worse happening. Yeah, most definitely. I mean, just awful. And this should be, you know, I hope people who see this talk to kids they know about it and maybe teach them the roar, you know, just screaming in that, you know,

if you're cornered like this, scream and, you know, just make as much noise as you can. That's what they recommend. Yeah. You know, Chris, thank you so much for joining me. Just a really terrifying, horrible case could have happened to anybody. Thank you so much. Yeah. And if I could just, if I could just close by saying one thing for the parents out there that are watching, talk to your children about these types of things. I know that it's uncomfortable to talk with your kids about potential for sexual abuse or inappropriate touching, but we all in this day and age need to have conversations with our kids that are hard about it is okay to say no. You need to have three to five safe adults that you can tell secrets to in your life and empower your children to know that

they haven't done something wrong. It's the grown up that has done something wrong and then it's safe for them to talk to you about it. Most definitely. Thanks again, Chris. Thank you very much. Good to see as always. Now let's take a look. one more time at that body camera footage of Robert Deweese in custody. Yeah. Have a seat. Watch your knee. No, good swing out.

Send back here. Yep. We're going to walk up that big glass door. First room on your left if it's not occupied. Have a seat in that little round chair. For now, Robert Deweese remains in custody at the Warren County Jail in Ohio. his next court date has not yet been determined. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix.

I'm Annette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.