Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Sisters Use TikTok To Help Cops Catch Their Dad Accused of Molesting Kids

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

For more than a year, Ana Albarran and her sister, Yaneiry, have posted TikTok videos asking the public to help find their father, Davie Albarran, who was accused of molesting two children. The case gained so much attention that it was recently featured on "America's Most Wanted" which likely led to Davie Albarran's capture on Sunday night. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez about the Albarran sisters' campaign to find their dad in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show that delves into the biggest stories in crime.HOST:Angenette Levy: twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoAudio Editing - Brad MaybeGuest 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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. You guys, we f***ed in April. My father was arrested last night at Madeline's house. Two sisters take to TikTok to help capture their father after he was charged with sex crimes against children. I'm Anjanette Levy and this is Crime Fix. Anna Albaran and her sister have been all over TikTok for more than a year pleading with the public to help find their dad Davey. So this is my father Davey Albaron. I've been trying to spread awareness because he is currently on the run because he hurt 22 little girls. Davey Albaron has been wanted for

just over a year for sexual battery of a child and child abuse in Osceola County, Florida in starts to molest and rape two young girls. Now, thank God for the courageous acts of coming forward by these two girls. And we have a warrant for his arrest for the acts that he did against them. Help us find this guy and get him off the streets. The Alberon sisters knew what their father had done to the children was criminal. It was wrong. So they transformed themselves into social media crime fighters. Because he hurt 22 little girls between the ages of 4 and 16 years old, the 4-year-old he bought.

So yeah, he bought a child. At one point, the sisters even put up a billboard and started a GoFundMe for a reward. It has been an entire year that my father has been on the run with the help of his family. Then recently, a big, big break. The Albaran sisters appeared on America's Most Wanted. Baby Albaran's beautiful daughter Zanna and John 80 are with us. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having us.

Thank you so much for having us. You are so brave. You are so brave and tough. That likely helped generate a big tip in this case that led to the arrest of Davey Albaron in Polk County, about 90 minutes away from Osceola County on Sunday night. Here's Sheriff Grady Judd with how the arrest unfolded. And we received a tip on Sunday evening that he was hiding at a house off Country Haven Drive in Lakeland. Well, that was his mistake to come to Polk County. Our deputies surrounded the

house with a canine. It was late on a Sunday night and it was quiet because it's a beautiful, nice neighborhood. And all of a sudden, the silence was broken by scurrying around someone trying to get away. We circled a shed behind the house and took a guy into custody. He told us his name was Jose Fernandez. Well, no, it wasn't. It was Albaran, 51-year-old Albaran. And once we ran his fingerprints, we saw that it was him. And then he confessed that, in fact, it was him. The Albaran sisters, of course, took to TikTok to celebrate. So thanks to America's Most Wanted, he's only been on the show for a week and we found him osceola county sheriff marcos lopez is here to talk with us about the very latest in this case sheriff uh what is the latest when will davy alberon be back in your jail well right now he

is uh clearing some charges for providing false information to law enforcement in Polk County. As soon as he clears those charges, they will bring him over and they'll transport him here to the Osceola County Jail. So he can face the charges, the reference to sexual batteries, the capital sexual batteries. Tell me if you would, what charges he's facing, because his daughters have said, you know, there are multiple victims in this case. But it's our understanding he's only facing charges at this point for two victims. Yes, right now he's facing three capital sexual charges on children from 12 and under. He's facing lewd and lascivious molestation charges and also child abuse. um the reason we haven't been able to charge any any additional charges is because we're still waiting for any additional victims to come forward so we could start uh the process we can't do anything unless the victims come forward identify themselves and uh cooperate with us so we could

actually charge them yeah and that's a key piece of this a lot of the times these victims don't want to come forward and if they don't cooperate cooperate with you, there's not much you can do. Tell me if you would, the daughters in this case, Anna and her sister, obviously launched this massive campaign on TikTok, hoping to help capture their father. And yet they say that there were other family members who were aiding Davy Albaron. So tell me about how unusual this is to have two daughters come out and launch this campaign to capture their father. Yes, it is very unusual and my hat goes off to them. They're courageous, they're brave, and they did the right thing. One even mentions, you know, he's her best friend.

But you know what, when you're wrong, you're wrong. You're right. You're right. And justice is always going to prevail. The campaign that they launched and being unstoppable, their dedication and commitment to making sure he was apprehended is really what a real citizen should do and do to help law enforcement. You know, we're so limited with our resources sometimes. We do need those additional eyes and ears. And you can call anonymously to our crime lines. But when you directly get involved and continue to push, every tip helps. A lot of the family members were given false leads and false tips

saying he was in New York or in Philadelphia. And then he was in Puerto Rico. So what we did, we had to get the marshals involved because they start looking for those fugitives once they start leaving our jurisdictions. But I'm telling you, if we had more citizens like them that would come forward whenever these type of things happen, I'll tell you what, we can get more criminals off the streets and we'll be in just such a much safer place. And it really seems like the big break in the case happened when this appeared, the story, the case appeared and the

daughters appeared on America's Most Wanted. That may have led somebody with some information to say, you know what, I've just got to tell what I know. Well, we basically, you know, this whole case originated in the St. Cloud Police Department's jurisdiction, which is in my county. What I do is I showcase most wanted felons always to help whenever these type of cases where they're harming children, because you definitely want to prevent them from harming anyone else's children. If they're willing to harm their own family members, imagine what they'll do to strangers. So we showcased him on our Osceola's Most Wanted in December, it happened in November of 2022. And we showcased him late December 2022 to help raise the awareness. And then the daughter

also started raising awareness and we continued to push this. And then the America's Most Wanted picked it up and helped. And like a couple of weeks later, a week later, sure enough, one of the tips led to the correct place where he was at in Lakeland and it led to his arrest. Do you think that there could be some charges for the people who were helping him hide? You know, there is charges for harboring a fugitive. However, it's kind of hard to prove. It's kind of hard to say, you know, you have to go in and start interviewing them and talk to them and see, you know, what capacity was their involvement. Was he just there visiting and they told him to leave and he refused. Police showed up and he jumps out the window. There's so many different scenarios. I do believe that the Polk County Sheriff's Office will be looking into that because of all that happened in their jurisdiction. And, you know, he gave a false name, too. He tried to say that he wasn't him.

So that to me, they were able to figure that out very quickly. Sheriff Judd told me because they had a fingerprint scanner and it almost looks like something you'd see on CSI. You know, and I've seen them in county jails when I've been there doing stories. You put your fingerprint on there and they can, like that, they can figure out who somebody is and ID them. Yes, it's a very good tool. We have them here. We use them a lot on traffic stops and in criminal cases when people are not able to be identified. And, you know, sometimes you do get a good hit, and sometimes you don't if they're not in the system. So it just depends if they've been processed through the NCIC

and the FBI inlets. In this case, he had been because the warrants were already pushed through. But it's a good tool. It's a good resource. And my hat goes off to those officers in Polk County who didn't give up, and they didn't believe that he was not who he said he was and the persistence paid off. He actually was Davey Albaron. And I saw that you guys had a little bit of a celebration at the sheriff's office on Monday with the two daughters, which was great. If anybody has information about Davey Albaran or other crimes that he maybe is accused of, where should they reach out? How should they contact your office? Please have them call at 407-348-2222, the Osceola County Sheriff's Office non-emergency

line. Tell them to talk to a detective, victims' crimes, sex crimes. And what we'll do is we'll investigate, find out what jurisdiction it occurred in, and if it happened here, we'll add the additional charges. From speaking to the victim yesterday, there's one victim that something happened very similar in Orange County. She's supposed to be going to the Orange County Sheriff's Office to talk. Like you said earlier, it's very hard for them sometimes to come forward.

But when you see that these girls, they fought and continue to be persistent, now he's in jail. I think that gives other victims a little bit of hope and say, hey, you know what? Let's do this. Let's keep adding charges to this guy. And guess what? The longer and the more time will be added to his jail stay. So, you know, anytime victims come forward and help us out, it really helps law enforcement so much because like I said, we're shorthanded, you know, you know how it is all across America without witnesses and victims coming forward and telling their sides of the story or pushing, being persistent. Sometimes these things don't come to closure. So we really thank them. Yeah, most definitely. And the victims coming forward, obviously, they're seeing that this guy is being arrested.

He will be taken through the system. So it probably reassures them a little bit that something will actually be investigated and possibly charges filed if the evidence is there. Sheriff Marcos Lopez, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Thank you for having me. And that's it for this edition of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Until then, have a great night. You can download Crime Fix on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your favorite podcasts and new episodes post each weeknight at 6 Eastern time on Law and Crime's YouTube channel. Daniel Camacho does our video editing. Our head

of social media is Bobby Zoki. Our senior director of social media is Vanessa Vine. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers. Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher book our guests. And Brad Mabey is our audio editor.