Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Girl, 11, LURED OUT OF HOME BY GROWN MAN, VIDEO GAME ROBLOX

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

An 11-year-old girl’s brother thinks his sister is leaving for school, but it's 5:30 in the morning. Then the boy realizes that it's Sunday. He calls his mother, who is working overnights.  Mom comes home and calls the Wayne Police Department.   The mom tells police this is not the first time the girl has gone missing.  A missing person's report was filed in June, but the 11-year-old returned 90 minutes later, telling her mother that she had met up with a man named Darius, whom, she had been talking to on the online game platform Roblox.  The girl was grounded after the incident, and access to the online platforms was taken away, but as North Jersey.com reports, the mother now thinks the girl may have used other family members' phones to continue to communicate with 27-year-old Darius Matylewich.  When he was contacted by the police, Matylewich denied knowing the girl's whereabouts. Finally,  Matylewich admitted to picking up the girl and driving her back across the state line to his home in Bear, Delaware, 135 miles away from Wayne, New Jersey.  Darius Matylewich is charged with first-degree kidnapping and third-degree endangering the welfare of a child.   Joining Nancy Grace Today: Fran Longwell – Former Deputy State’s Attorney, Former Assistant State’s Attorney (specializing in child abuse, sex offenses and homicides) Dr. Shari Schwartz– Forensic Psychologist (specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy); Twitter: @TrialDoc; Author: “Criminal Behavior” and “Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology” Barry Golden - Former Senior Inspector for the U.S. Marshals Service, Owner of Golden Consulting and Investigations Titania Jordan – Chief Parent Officer, Bark Parental Controls; Author: “Parenting In A Tech World;” Instagram/Twitter: @TitaniaJordan William Slater – Cybersecurity Expert and Chief Information Security Officer at Slater Technologies. Inc. Alexis Tereszcuk -  CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Writer/Fact Checker at Lead Stories; Twitter: @swimmie2009    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A little girl, just 11 years old, just turned 11, kidnapped by a grown man she meets online playing Roblox. My son plays Roblox. All over the world, tweens and teens play Roblox. How in the hay did he get his mitts on an 11-year-old girl, a grown man? Number one, what is he doing playing Roblox? Shouldn't he have a job? But number two, is he chatting this little girl up online and luring her? Well, it worked because he kidnapped her. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here on Crime Stories and on Sirius XM 111. First of all, how did it go down? Listen. It was an odd and early start to the school day. An 11-year-old

girl's brother thinks his sister is leaving for school early it's around 5 30 in the morning but then the boy realized it was sunday he calls his mother who is working overnights mom comes home calls the wayne police department interesting very interesting so this is a sunday he thinks it's a school day and at 5 5.30 a.m., the little sister is already gone. And this boy, the brother, of course, calls mommy. Little did they know that Sunday morning at 5.30 a.m., what was about to unfold. Joining me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. But Alexis Tereschuk, first to you, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Alexis, tell me about where the little girl lives. I know it's in New Jersey that the little girl was kidnapped all the way to Bear, Delaware.

And where was mommy? She works overnights. She does. She works a night shift and she was, it was the morning, early in the morning, 530 in the morning. So she was not home yet from her job. And this little girl, she lives in Wayne, New Jersey. It's about 30 minutes north of New York City.

And it's actually, Wayne is a nice area of New Jersey. So they were living in a hotel. This is temporary housing for the family. They were living kind of in a long-term hotel area. The little girl was home with her brother while mommy was at work. And so he noticed she got up. She went to, she gets up at 5.30 in the morning. She gets up to walk outside and he thinks, well, now she's just going to school. Then all of a sudden he realizes, wait a minute,

I'm not up and I'm not going to school. It's Sunday. Why is she going to school? So he called his mom immediately to report this. I'm just trying to take in what you're saying. They were staying kind of like an apartment suite with a kitchen and a little den and several bedrooms in between homes in Wayne, New Jersey. Now, is it Wayne, New Jersey, or is it Wayne Township. They call them townships in New Jersey. Okay. Wayne Township is a suburb. The population is only around 50,000 people and has been voted, quote, one of the best places to live in New Jersey, where residents feel very safe and are able to afford to own their own home. Interesting that it's still a very residential area where you don't expect a little 11-year-old girl to get kidnapped. Nancy, can I tell you what more about the town?

Because this county. Yes, please. Is also where a lot of the real housewives of New Jersey live. Count on Alexis Tereszczuk in the middle of a crime story to tell me about the real housewives. Okay. I'm not sure which housewife is on which program, but I do know they almost all have these huge, humongous houses like mega mansions and every time I I saw one on a plane on Monday the lady beside me was watching the housewives I was watching the office she was watching the housewives and even when they're just walking around their

house they have on full hair I mean big hair, the makeup, the jewels, and really expensive clothes, and they visit each other a lot in the middle of the day. So I'm trying to, what are you trying to tell me? This is a really upscale neighborhood? If the housewives in New Jersey live there? It is. Yeah, they do. They live in these 10,000 square foot houses.

They're humongous. But I was just giving you some context of the area. And this family then is living in a small, long-term residential motel, hotel. Okay, so I'm trying to figure out now, even though it's suburban, the tree-lined streets, the whole thing, the housewives, the mansions, it's still about 20 miles from New York, right? From New York City? Correct. Okay, but yet From New York City? Correct. Okay, but yet they say they feel very safe. So another issue, which I find really interesting,

and I'm going to go out to a special guest joining us, Allie McNeil. Allie is co-founder and executive director with Revved Up Kids. And I met All Ali when I was trying to teach a course on how to protect yourself your child once a child is already snatched and how to avoid being snatched that's how I know Ali because revved up kids is all about saving yourself from kidnap Ali what people don't realize is that predators are looking in

residential areas. I told you, Allie, I think I told you, my daughter asked me one day, she said, mom, am I ever going to get to take a walk alone? Well, the first time she said that, I said, no. But the second or third time she said, I'm like, sure, go for a walk. Well, my husband and I had already laid out a plan, or I did, and he begrudgingly went along thinking it was unnecessary. I followed her surreptitiously halfway through the walk. He came the other way, and once he laid eyes on her, started backing up out of her view, of course, until she was in eyesight of home. After you cover so many cases of children getting snatched in residential areas, what else can you do? I don't buy the free range children method where they just go wherever they want, like chickens out in the backyard. N-O. But

residential neighborhoods, just because you're in a tree-lined area with big roads and mega mansions in the background with the housewives in there drinking it up, that doesn't mean your child is safe. Absolutely, Nancy. And here's the thing that we have to be aware of. Kids do occasionally get snatched off the street, but way more often, these are people now who are building relationships with these children in their online worlds and creating a friendship or what feels like a loving, dating sort of dynamic with this child. And then they convince the child to run away with them. So no longer is, you know, the predator just driving up and snatching the kid off the sidewalk. They are grooming and methodically building this relationship with these children in their online world. And a lot of it is happening in the gaming environment. And a lot of it is happening

in the social media environment. So parents just need to know it doesn't matter if you're sitting in a million dollar home, your child is very much vulnerable to being approached by a predator in their online world. Does anybody remember, and it pains me to say it in this way, does anybody remember a 13-year-old little girl just turned 13? She's like 12 in a day. Nicole Lovell. I only knew Nicole in death, but I got to speak to her mother many times. Nicole Lovell met a Virginia Tech student, a star athlete. I think he had been valedictorian in high school. He was a star athlete. His name was David Eisenhower, not Eisenhower, Eisenhour. And he lured the little girl online because when you just said,

Allie Neal is joining me from Revved Up Kids, when you just said that the little girl thinks she's in a romantic dating relationship. I think, how can an 11-year-old think they're in a romantic dating relationship? How do they even know about a romantic dating relationship? But Nicole Lovell, who had just turned 13, was lured online by a Virginia Tech engineering student and they were having full-on sex and he killed her so that the truth would not come out that he had been which is of course statutory rape so the answer that, his answer was to kill her. So it's, in our world, it's not a romantic dating relationship. But for a little girl, let me go to Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic

psychologist, literally author of the book, Criminal Behavior and Where Law and Psychology Intersect. Dr. Sherry, I hear my son and daughter talk about people dating in their class. I'm like, you can't even drive. What do you mean you're dating? Where do you go? They go, oh, we just text. That's what that is. So the children actually think they're in a dating relationship, a romantic relationship,

because they're texting or talking online or talking in Roblox. That's correct. And imagine the amount of hours of contact when you have your own phone and the person you're texting with has their own phone and you have this immediate and long hours of contact back and forth and back and forth. And when communicating and writing, you might share things that you would be maybe embarrassed to say if you're face to face or in the limited amount of time that you have that contact. So some pretty deep social bonds, especially for kids who tend to be trusting and not have the life experience to be able to distinguish between truth and lies and things like that on a deeper level.

This is very powerful, very powerful emotionally. You know what? I want to hear that sound again, please, Jackie, from our friend Dave Mack. It was an odd and early start to the school day. An 11-year-old girl's brother thinks his sister is leaving for school early. It's around 530 in the morning. But then the boy realized it was Sunday. He calls his mother who is working overnights. Mom comes home, calls the Wayne Police Department.

So mommy comes home from work and you know that's trouble when you have to leave work to come home. But mommy comes straight home and calls 911, the Wayne County Police Department. Interesting that this happens in the early morning hours of a Sunday or the Saturday night. Not sure on the timing. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joining me right now, in addition to Allie Neal, Executive Director of Revved Up Kids, and Dr. Sherry Schwartz, and of course, Alexis Teresichuk, CrimeOnline.com, is Titania Jordan, Chief Parent Officer with Bark Parental Controls and author of Parenting in a Tech World. You can find her at Bark.us. Titania, thank you for joining us. Could you just give me a rudimentary explanation of what is Roblox?

And it's not just where you go on and you play a video game like Ms. Pac-Man or something. You have conversation. You engage with the people you're playing with or against. Yeah, Roblox is the most popular gaming platform with children ages five to 12. And to give you a grasp of the extent of it, Roblox has over 54 million daily users with nearly half of them under 13 years old.

To Tonya Jordan, you got me drinking from the fire hydrant too much, too fast. Just start the whole thing over because you say, this is what I could get that quickly. You say it's the most popular gaming platform, a what's a gaming platform, for children between ages 5 and 12, but there are 54 million people on it.

That sounds like some adults are thrown in. A hundred percent. Yeah, nearly half of them are under 13, which means nearly half of them are over 13, perhaps over 18, perhaps over 30. Why are 30-year-old, and you know it's men, sorry men on the panel, but it's you, why are grown men playing Roblox? Don't they need to work? You know, I can't speak to their income. Why don't you just go over to Legoland and get on the rides? I mean, I don't get it. You know, what's very concerning, Nancy, is that I posted a video

about this on Instagram and TikTok and it went viral. The amount of parents I have messaging me saying, wait a minute, Roblox has parental controls. I didn't even know they had those. Titania, how do we see that? How do we see the video you're talking about? You posted it? Yeah, Instagram.com slash Titania Jordan. It's like literally every minute I'm getting a message from a parent asking me, how do I implement parental controls in Roblox? They just they don't even know it's there. You know, I'm getting Jackie waving wildly. Oh, my goodness. Okay, now I see why you're so agitated. Then turn back over.

Roughly 18 million tweens in the U.S., but there's 54 million people on Roblox, which means a lot, over 50% of these are adults, grown men in their underwear hunched over their computer screen, playing games with children like this 11-year-old little girl. That doesn't stop you in your tracks. I just want to, you know, set my head on fire and scream me out of the studio. Why are all these grown men obsessed with playing games with children? Is nobody asking that question? Can I speak to that really quick, Nancy? Is this Allie? I mean, if I caught my husband at 11 o'clock

at night paying Roblox, I would set up a seance and call his mother right now. I am the mother of a almost 24-year-old male who started gaming when he was probably 10 years old. And wow, it was a different world back then to Tanya, right? But anyway, he still games. He still games. He's not in there to game with children or to lure or meet children, but it's just a pastime. It's a stress reliever.

It's fun for them. So there are a lot of people who are playing Roblox who have no interest in connecting with children on Roblox. Allie Neal, how old is your son, Allie? My son is 23. And where does he live? Denver, Colorado. So how do you know how much he's playing Roblox? Oh, he's not playing Roblox. I'm just saying video games. I'm saying a lot of adults play video games as a pastime and a stress reliever, not because they want to meet little kids. Okay. So he does not play Roblox? Not that I know of. No. I think he's more into war games and stuff. Okay. What does he do for a living? Just curious.

Oh my gosh. I'm not going to share all this personal information about my son, but I'll tell you he's a consultant. I mean, I was just curious about, I mean, I read or listen to a book on tape or cook and constantly trolling the internet for crime stories or reading victims that want help. And that's a pastime. I hear what you're saying. So now I'm supposed to ferret out how many of these 25 million adults are not interested in meeting children. But we're specifically talking about Roblox because I believe it was Titania Jordan that gave me that statistic that 54 million people are playing Roblox. Is that the statistic, Titania?

That's correct. 54 million daily users of the platform. It lets you create games. It lets you play other people's games. Does it let you have an alternate identity, Titania? Yeah, you don't have to use your real name as your username, which is part of the problem. It looks a lot like Minecraft, does it not? That's what my son was into for a long time before he got into the other one. I can't remember the other one. Fortnite? That, yes. But happily,

he's grown out of those. But back to Roblox, doesn't it look a lot like Minecraft? It does. It looks a lot like Minecraft. It's a collection of worlds and games, and it's really an entirely different virtual world where anybody can be anybody and talk to anybody unless you have the chat function turned off. And you can absolutely lie about who you are and your age. William Slater joining me, cybersecurity expert, chief information security officer at Slater Technologies.

You can find him at BillSlater.com. Bill, thank you for being with us. Jump in. Again, people, this is not high tea at Windsor Castle. You're not curtsying before Queen Camilla. Jump in, people. Okay, Bill, hit it. Let me share some commonalities with you.

The last time I was on a call with you on October 4th, we discussed Miss Alyssa McCommon and her 12-year-old lover who's gotten her pregnant. Let me remind, politely remind you that... She got herself pregnant. She's a grown woman with children and a teacher, correct? Right, correct. And who knows what's going on with their marriage? That's none of my business, and I never speculate.

But I'll tell you what, that relationship with that 12-year-old started with a common dialogue about computer gaming. So if you connect the dots, you area, that started over video games. So I don't think it's a coincidence here. Very real danger. Very real danger for our kids. Also with us, Fran Longwell, former deputy state's attorney, Calvert County, Maryland, former Assistant State's Attorney and Prince George specializing in child abuse and sex offenses. Fran Longwell, he's right. All three of our guests are right.

It's a commonality. It's something to talk about. And these purrs can sneak in and they know they're talking about they're talking to a child and they get the child's information. Like, oh, where do you go to school? Didn't I see a picture of you online with the Mighty Tigers shirt on from ABC Elementary School? It was that you. Oh, you're so pretty. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Do you like soccer?

Do you like Taylor Swift? Are you a Swifty? And there you go. That's what happens, Fran Longwell. Absolutely. I had a couple of cases like that where the kids were actually, it wasn't even online. He was like tracking them from school and then would meet them on the street and talk to them on the street and try to befriend these kids. And it's really frightening.

Like you said, it's not like you could just let your kids go out and walk to school anymore. You just don't know who's out there. In fact, it's much more sinister. It's much more nefarious because you think that you're watching them. You think you know what's going on, but they're literally in a whole different universe. It's not a universe. It's more of a metaverse that you're not a part of,

and they can be physically in front of you, but yet they could be talking to a predator. Barry Golden with me, former senior inspector, U.S. Marshal Service, owner of Golden Consulting, golden-ci.com. Barry Golden, what say you?

You know, and I'm listening to the conversations by all the other guests, and what I realize with this, I never even heard of Roblox ever before in my life until I looked at this story. And what I take from it is, you know, this device is just a target rich environment for someone like this 27 year old man has, who has alleged to have kidnapped an 11 year old girl. So what I wonder is, what is he what kind of, you know, screen name or whatever is he using on this device? Is he posing as a 12-year-old boy, an 18-year-old boy? I can't wrap my head around him saying I'm 27 years old. Well, Roblox is out there, Barry Golden, just like Fortnite, just like Minecraft. And they're not just games.

It's a cross between a chat room and a game because you're playing a game, but you're playing it with other people all over the world and they present themselves as to who they want you to think that they are. So in the middle of the night, between a Saturday and a Sunday, when mom is on the swing shift and that perp knows it. He knows a little

girl is home without a parent. That's when he strikes. Take a listen to this. Police say the man the girl had gone to meet was named Darius. When the girl went missing, database technology was used by Wayne, New Jersey police officers to uncover Darius' full name and phone number. It's 27-year-old Darius Matowich, and he lives 135 miles away from Wayne, New Jersey. Let that just soak in. This guy is willing to drive 135 plus miles to get to this little girl? Wow. What would he want to do? Go to Baskin Robbins to get an this little girl wow what would he want to do uh go to baskin robbins to get an ice cream

135 plus miles alexis teres chuck with us crime online.com investigative reporter is that correct he lives over 135 miles away he does exactly and so he took her across state lines which is not a good thing at all. This is actually going to be a felony and he's facing felony kidnapping charges. And this could be years in jail, decades in jail for him. Well, do you have a problem with that, Alexis? How about a grown woman or man meets up with your little angel, your precious boy, and takes him across state lines? Why do you care how long

he's going to be in jail well i think that he should be facing even longer time you take a child away from the home and the thing is though one thing that the police have said this little girl had complained well let me take that back this man is saying that she told him she begged him to come and get her because she was in an abusive home. Alexa Tereshka at CrimeOnline.com, you're absolutely right. He is now claiming that the little girl wanted to be, quote, rescued. Really? Well, why didn't he call police or social workers? He's nearly 30 years old. Why did he drive over two hours, well over two hours, to go and get her and take her across state lines. He didn't take her to a therapist. He didn't take her to a doctor. He didn't take her to anyone that could help her.

And he happens to be the same person that has been luring her online. You know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of my longtime friend and colleague, Mark Klass. His daughter, Polly, was kidnapped out of the home in the middle of a spend-the-night party, and she was sex assaulted horribly and murdered. And in court, the killer dared to say, oh, she was being abused at home. She was not. Mark Klass almost got to him in the courtroom. He dove over pews and over the gate, the wooden gate, keeping the audience from the lawyers and parties and went straight for his throat. Sadly, he didn't make it. That said, you think I believe this POC technical legal term when he says, oh, I was just rescuing her? No, no. William Slater, joining a cybersecurity expert and chief information security officer, Slater Technologies Inc.

William questioned the police very quickly uncovered Darius Madelwatch's full name. They know exactly where he lives. They get it all through what? His server ID or his phone? How did they do that? My hunch is they may have started, and everybody can do this, and this is not an advertisement. It's just one of my favorite tools.

It's called truthfinder.com, and I'll tell you why I use this tool. I use this tool for a couple of reasons. One, this is a great research tool to find out about people. The second reason is, for all the years I've been in computing, I've never gone out on the dark web,

and I don't advise people gone out on the dark web and i don't advise people to go on the dark web so this tells you this truthfinder.com tells you a lot about people including the vehicle id of of the vehicle they drive tells you all their past phone numbers their addresses their associates etc um so i think their investigation may have started there. But they had to have a way to get his name. So they go to the girl's computer where she's been playing Roblox. And what, if anything, do they find on the computer? Let's go chronologically from A to Z.

The first thing they do is look at her computer or her cell phone, which I'm sure she took with her. But what would they look for on her computer? William Slater. Yeah, the first thing that they would look at is things like the browser cache and any residual data files that can be found that are associated with that application. And then it all falls down from there. It's very easy. Can you please speak English to me? They go on her computer. They find out who she's playing Roblox with.

Right. Then they can find his PI, internet provider, his IP, excuse me, internet provider. Right. And from there, they may be able to get his telephone number if he's playing on a cell phone, which he probably is. I mean, what do you think? Let me throw this to Tanya Jordan. I doubt he's sitting at a mainframe. He's probably on a tablet or his phone because you see tweens playing on their phones more than on a mainframe, right?

That's correct. Yeah, the mobile aspect and usage of Roblox amongst children is very high. I will say that Roblox has been forthcoming about working with law enforcement to help. So the second that law enforcement pinged Roblox about this incident, I know that they were probably doing all they could to dig in, find this username, and surface any information they had about him. So how do you locate the person based on the little girl's computer. What do you do? Would it be evidence, Barry Golden or Titania, anybody on the panel, if you look on her, as he said, her browser cache, you would see with whom she's been playing, and then you backtrack from there. Is that how they

get his phone number? And from his phone number, theytrack from there. Is that how they get his phone number? And from his phone number, they get his location? Is that how it works, anybody? You don't know what's on the account. They might have an account on Roblox where you have to put some kind of email or contact number or something like that. I don't know the ins and outs of how that database is all set up. So you may have something like that on there.

Well, think about it if you want to get a a new gmail account you put in your information and you give them information like your phone or some other email account and so gmail has your info because you gave it to them in order to create a gmail account barry golden help me out yes absolutely and so you know all these accounts when you sign up for an account you have emails you have phone numbers and stuff with credit cards all i need is a phone number you give me a phone number i'm going to know exactly who you are in about 30 seconds absolutely so that's an easy way that's an easy way to backtrack the law enforcement they jumped on that and what you don't know is that if this guy he steered away from

roblox maybe he provided a cell phone number, maybe it's a, you know, if he's really trying to cover his tracks, he's going to use a Google chat or text me now or text now. There's all these apps out there that are anonymous voice over IP numbers that you're virtually anonymous and people think, oh yeah, I'm anonymous with this. No, you're not. Okay. I can still backtrack you through that. It's going to take a little bit, you know, some subpoenas, but we can still backtrack you. Law enforcement can do that. And I got to tell you, Wayne County jumped on it and they figure out his location. Listen, when he was contacted by police, Matowich denied knowing the girl's whereabouts. Finally, after answering more questions, Matowich admitted to picking up the girl and driving her back across state lines to his home

in Bear, Delaware. The girl's parents were not aware and did not consent to the trip. He gave police his address. At 9.25 a.m., first responders showed up. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Fran Longwell, former deputy state's attorney, Calvert County, weigh in. Now what? They find his location. Then what do they do? I'm sure they tried to, at that time, they're going to interview him and try to find out what's going on and find out if the girl's there, get the girl back. I'm sure when they called him and said he was in Delaware,

they had people there right away in order to get the child, to get her away from him. The number one concern is getting the girl out of his place. Alexis Treschot, what happened then? They took her back from him. They went and rescued her and took her, I believe, to a medical facility to make sure, again, she's 11 years old. He's in his 20s. He's so much older than she is. He's almost 30. And you would never expect that this was, this isn't an 11-year-old and a and a 15 year old. This is a grown adult. Alexis, have you looked at his mugshot? Very disheveled.

He is a stereotypical guy hunched over his computer in the basement late at night playing Roblox in his underwear. I can just can. Yes, him. And I want to point out another thing that when authorities first came to his home, he answered extremely evasively. He wouldn't say if the girl was there, and he initially answered, quote, in the negative that she was not there. So let me ask you this, Fran Longwell. If he was trying to help the girl, why take her off across state lines? Why hide her in his place and lie when the cops ask?

Exactly, because he wasn't trying to help her. He was trying to kidnap her just as he did. And he had other ideas, I'm sure, of what he was going to, what the relationship, if you want to call it that, it was going to be from then on. He wasn't about to let them know she was with him because then he knows he's in trouble. He knows he's in trouble now. He's taken her out of state. He knows he's in trouble, so he's trying to hide it.

Guys, take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com. The Passaic County Prosecutor's Office charged 27-year-old Darius Matowich with first-degree kidnapping and third-degree endangering the welfare of a child. Matowich is 5'8", 209 pounds, and 27 years old. He has since been extradited to New Jersey and faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted on the kidnapping charge. A judge ordered Matowich to remain detained following his initial court appearance. The judge cited the defendant's initial obstructive behavior

when questioned about the girl's disappearance. The judge also said Matowich's lack of ties to the community made him a flight risk given the seriousness of the charges. And more. Let's know what the prosecutor said. Passaic County Assistant Prosecutor Jessica Petrella argued that the relationship between the 11-year-old girl and Darius Matowich, a man more than twice her age, was inappropriate. NewJersey.com reported that the assistant prosecutor said, If Matelwich was concerned for the girl's safety, he had other options besides taking her back to his home. The man reportedly told police that he, quote,

thought he could handle this himself, unquote. Now, you've got to hear what the defense attorney is saying, and I got to tell you, this is why we have the Fifth Amendment. To remain silent, right? To remain silent, because this lawyer, I think, is just digging the hole worse to bury his client. Let's start cut six. 6. NorthJersey.com reports that Jillian Elko, attorney for Darius Matalwich, argued that there were, quote, no allegations here of any nefarious intent by my client, unquote, in the alleged kidnapping. The attorney for Matalwich also stated that the little girl begged Matalwich to pick her up from what Elko called a, quote, unhealthy and unstable living situation, unquote. Elko also said Madelwich repeatedly discouraged the girl from running away and after picking her up, asked her several times if she wanted to go back. Dr. Sherry Schwartz, I think I need a shrink. So you got a guy nearly 30 years old asking a little

11-year-old girl, you sure you don't want to go back? He's the adult, not her. That is so true. And my brain is screaming this whole time. I'm older than 27, a professional. So maybe I know a little bit more, but I feel like if somebody is in trouble, a runaway, if that's what you're claiming, right? That she's a runaway and she needs to get out of her situation. What training do you have to help her?

Why is it that you don't know you're supposed to call authorities, which would have been much more efficient and fast, right? Just plain faster to get this child help if that's what you really believe than driving, what, three hours to get to her in the middle of the night? In the middle of the night and then absconding with her across state lines and all of his BS about an unhealthy living situation. Where was mommy? Mommy, was she out at the club? Lightning round, Alexis Treschuk.

Was mommy out clubbing that night? Yes, no. No. Was mommy hanging out at a bar? No. Treschuk, was she trying to score some crack on the corner? No. Was she cooking up meth in the kitchen? No. Was mommy hanging out at a bar? No. Therese Chuck, was she trying to score some crack on the corner? No. Was she cooking up meth in the kitchen?

No. Where was she, Alexis Therese Chuck? At work. Overnight shift. Working the overnight shift so she could be with the kids during the day. It reminds me so much, Alexis, of my dad that you and I have discussed many times. Working the night shift and the, as he called it, the third trick to support us. My mom working the day and him working the night. And this guy

wants to, made a witch, wants to jump up and say it's an unhealthy living situation because mommy's out working the night shift to support these two children. If I could just get my hands around him, give him a little finger necklace. But the mom was on to what was happening. She didn't trust the daughter being on. Remember, the little girl is just 11. Take a listen to our cut to. The mom tells police this is not the first time the girl's gone missing. A missing persons report was filed in June,

but the 11-year-old returned 90 minutes later, telling her mother that she had met up with a man she had been talking to on the online game platform Roblox. Roblox is a virtual universe that allows users to create and share experiences online, encouraging players to, quote, be anything you can imagine, unquote. The girl was grounded after that incident, and access to the online platforms was taken away. But NorthJersey.com reports the mother now says she thinks the girl may have used other family members' phones to continue to communicate with the man. So, Titania Jordan joining me, Chief Parent Officer at Bark Parental Controls. This is not an ad.

I have Bark. And it's so sensitive. I've told this story before to Tanya, so bear with me. John David was playing soccer at the time and he dove. He was goalie. He dove through the net somehow and he stopped the other side from scoring and he got bruises up and down his right arm doing it. And he was so proud of what he did. He took pictures of it and sent it to one of his little friends. Hey, look what happened to me. But I stopped the score. Bark picked up. I got an alert, self-harm, self-harm on John David. I'm like, what? It was they it was so sensitive. It picked up that he had a bruise and a picture.

That's what bark is. And again, not an ad, but you think your children are safe. The mom took the phone away. She was only gone 90 minutes. And that's how carefully this mom is watching her after she's gone for a few minutes, less than 30 minutes, and the mom doesn't realize where she is, she calls police. The little girl came home within 90 minutes, and she had been out. She had met this guy somehow and only gone 90 minutes. The mom takes the phone

away, takes electronics away from her, but somehow she manages to sneak back on, probably when the mom was at work. So to Tanya Jordan, what do we do? First, we got to get our heads out of the sand, which we're doing by listening to this program right now. Next, we need to have candid conversations with our children about tricky people and how they might seem really nice online, but they do not have our best interest in mind. Then we need to monitor. We need to use Bark. We need to set screen time limits and filters and controls and make sure the tech that our children have have location tracking capabilities.

It's a whole new world. When you let your children have tech, you've got to use tech to help parent them. You know what I do after I met you, Titania? I always ask, hey, who are you playing with? Who's that? And my son tells me, and I check. And that is always somebody.

They have to play with somebody they actually know in real life. Same thing with my daughter. Who are you texting? She's not into the games, but she texts a good bit. She's always on Pinterest and other places. I always ask once in a while, I've checked behind them and they've always told me the truth. But this little girl probably was afraid she was going to get in trouble. And she was using probably her brother's device, his cell phone. We wait as justice unfolds. And as of right now, we don't

know exactly what happened to this little girl, but we will find out. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.