On August 2, a man from Florida was arrested by authorities months after it was reported that he sexually abused a 4-year-old girl that he was babysitting.
Child abuse
The suspect is 19-year-old Braxton Upshaw. According to WTXL, he babysat the two children of a mother that had to go to work. He looked after them two to four times every week from August 2019 until the sexual abuse incident that happened in October 2019.
According to the Leon County police, the mother stated that Upshaw watched her children while she went to work on October 7. When the woman came home, her 4-year-old daughter told her that Upshaw touched her inappropriately.
The court documents stated that the mother sensed that the babysitter looked anxious to leave when she returned home that evening. Although it is not stated whether the mother alerted the police on the night of the incident, a warrant for Upshaw's arrest was issued on April 22.
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The arrest report stated that the man would sometimes babysit the children late, around 7 pm, and he had also spent the night at the home in the past. However, it is not known how often that happened, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
The authorities collected DNA samples from the little girl to conduct a rape kit. WTXL also reported that during the interview with the authorities, the little girl said that Upshaw "hurt" her all the time.
The investigators also gathered DNA from Upshaw, who had denied all the claims and said that his DNA would not be found on the 4-year-old girl.
Upshaw was charged with lewd or lascivious molestation on a victim under 12 years old. According to the report of The Tallahassee Democrat, Upshaw was released without bail after a court hearing on August 3. He was ordered to wear a GPS monitoring device and he is barred from contacting the little girl and her family.
Similar incident
Earlier this year, a man from Springfield was given numerous felony charges after he was accused of repeatedly sexually abusing two young boys.
The 41-year-old suspect, Michael Siepel, was charged in January with 12 counts of statutory sodomy for acts that happened between 2006 and 2011.
According to the court documents obtained by Springfield News Leader, Siepel was entrusted to babysit the victims. He started to sexually abuse one victim when the boy was only 10 years old, and the other boy was only 5 years old.
The allegations include Siepel performing lewd sex acts on the boys and trying to get them to perform sex acts on him. The statement also said that Siepel was investigated for the first time in 2014, when the older boy told his parents that Siepel abused him.
In March 2014, the Republic police interviewed Siepel, and he denied having any sexual contact with any of the victims. No charges were filed after the first victim came forward and it was not explained why.
A second victim came forward in April 2019, and the court document states that the second boy was not aware of the case that was filed by the first boy back in 2014.
The online records show a warrant was issued for Siepel's arrest. Ten of his statutory sodomy charges are first-degree, which carry possible life sentences.
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