A Fairfax man has become the latest person to walk into a trap set by a local detective searching for online predators, police said.
Roy Matthew Thigpen, 41, showed up at the Lee’s Hill Shopping Center in Spotsylvania yesterday for a planned sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl, Sheriff’s spokeswoman Liz Scott said.
As is often the case, the “girl” was actually a Spotsylvania detective who had been portraying a teenage girl online.
Thigpen was charged with electronic solicitation, attempted indecent liberties with a child, possession of marijuana and driving on a suspended license. He was placed in the Rappahannock Regional Jail under no bond.
According to Scott, the suspect first contacted the detective on Dec. 9 in an online chat room.
The suspect asked for the girl’s age and location, and the detective told him he was a 14-year-old girl from the Fredericksburg area.
Thigpen told the "girl" he was 41 and from Northern Virginia, which turned out to be true.
There was no further contact between the two until yesterday, Scott said, when the suspect contacted the detective again.
This time, the conversation became sexually oriented, Scott said, and the suspect suggested specific sexual acts.
Scott said Thigpen asked to meet the girl at the shopping center and continued his explicit conversation on his cell phone while traveling to Spotsylvania.
Detectives were waiting when Thigpen arrived. They recognized his vehicle and they recognized him from pictures he’d sent, Scott said.
A marijuana smoking device, a cell phone and digital cameras were seized from the suspect’s car.
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