SALT LAKE COUNTY, Utah — A chance sighting by two police officers led to the arrest of a man for allegedly raping a 13-year-old girl.
Officers came upon the alleged crime as it happened.
Now, 27-year-old Tosh Seegmiller sits in jail, facing charges of sodomy on a child, rape of a child and sex abuse of a child. It started the way many of these cases begin.
“These two apparently were having chats on a social media app,” Detective Ken Hansen with Unified Police said. “We don’t right now know how long they’ve been talking to each other, but they met up on this particular night.”
That particular night was Tuesday.
Charging documents state Seegmiller met with the 13-year-old girl he’d chatted with on the app, performed oral sex, then went and bought condoms. After that, documents state Seegmiller parked behind a berm on an empty home lot in a Herriman neighborhood, near 5388 Safari Club Way, and the two began to have sex.
Sometime around 7:45 p.m., Det. Hansen said two officers taking a different call in the area noticed the parked car.
“Two of our officers went there together, and looked inside the vehicle, and that’s when they noticed an adult male having sex with a juvenile,” Hansen said.
Seegmiller went to jail, and Hansen said they took the young girl to the hospital. They also alerted her parents.
Hansen said a lot of cases like this deal with undercover police posing as teens to catch child predators.
“Not all the 13-year olds online are police officers,” he said. “This really does happen, and parents need to know that it happens and need to find out about what’s going on in their children’s phones.”
He gave some tips, including urging parents to look at their children’s phones and all the apps installed on the device. Parents should also learn what those apps are for and how they’re used, Hansen said.
In addition, parents should make sure their teen isn’t meeting anyone they’re talking to on these apps in person.
