Man Arrested During Cross-Country Flight Layover with 12-Year Old Girl He Abducted
Photo: Nathan Daniel Larson
A report of a missing 12-year old girl was filed with the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office and the Fresno Police Department on Monday, December 14th .
Early into the investigation, information led detectives to believe the girl may have been coerced into running away with an older man she met via social media in mid-October. It was further believed the girl had caught a flight from Fresno’s Yosemite International Airport to be with this man from Virginia.
Detectives with the Central California Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force took over
the case given the nature of the circumstances.
They worked with the Fresno Airport Police and Homeland Security Investigations to identify the adult male as 40-year old Nathan Daniel Larson of Catlett, Virginia. Larson and the 12-year old had boarded a plane headed to Washington DC with a layover in Denver.
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Denver Police was contacted and they appointed a police officer assigned to the local FBI Task Force to locate and detain Larson. Larson was arrested in Denver and the child was rescued uninjured and reunited with her family on Monday night.
Details about the abduction were obtained after Larson was in custody. He flew into Fresno and went to the girl’s home where he persuaded her to sneak out about 2AM. Using a rideshare company, he picked her up and they headed to the Fresno airport.
Larson had the child wear a long hair wig to disguise her and instructed her to act disabled and unable to speak to avoid her talking with anyone as they made their way through the airport and to the plane.
On December 17th , Fauquier County (Virginia) Sheriff detectives, agents with Homeland Security Investigations, and the Northern Virginia/District of Columbia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force executed a search warrant at Larson’s 9200 Prospect Avenue block home in Catlett, VA where they seized electronic devices.
What detectives discovered about Larson during this investigation extends beyond this abduction. Through manipulation and grooming, Larson convinced the Fresno girl to send him pornographic images of herself.
Larson is also believed responsible of running a website encouraging the raping of children and the sharing of naked photos and videos of children being raped.
Furthermore, Larson is identified as a white supremacist who in December 2008 while living in
Boulder, Colorado was arrested after sending a detailed email to the U. S Secret Service threatening to kill the President of the United States – Barack Obama was the incoming president at the time.
Pleading guilty in a federal court, he was sentenced to 16 months in a federal prison of which he served 14. In 2017, he lost the race to become a member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing District 31 in which he ran as an independent.
At the time of this writing, Larson remains in custody at the Denver County Jail facing a misdemeanor charge for harboring a minor. A request to extradite him to the Fresno County Jail is in place where he will be charged with kidnapping, child abduction, soliciting child pornography from a minor, and meeting a child for the intention of sex.
Photos from the FCSO
