Husband and wife abducted 13-year-old from Virginia and raped her for days, feds say
A married couple kidnapped a 13-year-old from Virginia and took turns sexually assaulting the girl during a 15-hour drive to Missouri over the summer, federal prosecutors said.
Justin Johiah Curtright and Christin Marie Curtright raped the girl at their apartment in Springfield, Missouri, over several days in July, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia.
The abuse ended when Springfield Police Department officers visited the Curtrights and found the girl hiding in a closet inside their bedroom on July 27, prosecutors said.
She had a fake ID that identified her as Justin Curtright’s 15-year-old daughter, according to prosecutors, who said he regularly pretended to be her father.
After officers rescued the girl, they learned the Curtrights had groomed her online over the instant messaging platform Discord and found images they kept of themselves sexually abusing her inside their car, prosecutors said.
The 40-year-old husband and 32-year-old wife are both charged with transporting a minor in interstate commerce with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, a federal offense, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a Feb. 19 news release.
The couple was arrested Feb. 13, court records show.
“My client asserts her innocence, plans to fight the charges, and we have no further comment,” Christin Curtright’s court-appointed defense attorney, Monica Cliatt, said in an emailed statement to McClatchy News on Feb. 20
A federal public defender appointed to represent Justin Curtright didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment.
In May, Justin Curtright met the 13-year-old over Discord and began messaging her “for hours,” prosecutors said, based on a federal criminal complaint filed in court Feb. 5 .
At first, the girl said she was 18 before later telling him her true age, according to prosecutors.
The messages he sent her quickly turned sexual, prosecutors said.
Justin Curtright is accused of sending the girl a sexually explicit video before introducing her to his wife a day later, according to prosecutors.
He added the teen to a private Discord group chat with Christin Curtright, prosecutors said.
In an interview with an FBI forensic interviewer, the girl later reported Christin Curtright told her Justin Curtright “wanted to add (the girl) to his relationship with Christin, and Christin was open to it,” an FBI special agent wrote in an affidavit.
The Curtrights “extensively” messaged and spoke with the girl over the phone and video chatted with her while they took part in sex acts, according to prosecutors.
The kidnapping
After the girl revealed her age, she recalled to the FBI forensic interviewer that “Justin asked if it was bad that he ‘got off’ on her being 13,” the FBI agent wrote in the affidavit.
“Christin, by contrast, was upset, but moved past it,” the girl reported, the affidavit says.
In late June, the Curtrights planned to travel to southern Virginia, where they picked the girl up near her home on July 24, according to prosecutors.
After the girl got in their car, they kidnapped her and repeatedly raped her while driving to Springfield, Missouri, which is about a 160-mile drive southeast from Kansas City, prosecutors said.
The day of the abduction, the girl’s mother returned from work to find her missing, according to the affidavit.
She left her mother a note “stating she was running away,” the affidavit says.
Her mother reported her daughter’s disappearance to police, according to the affidavit.
After finding the girl in Missouri, Springfield police officers searched the Curtrights’ phones and found video chats of the couple “grooming and sexually exploiting the victim,” prosecutors said.
If Justin and Christin Curtright are both convicted of transporting a minor in interstate commerce with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, they’d face a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and up to life in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Suspected child sexual exploitation can be reported online to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline or by calling the organization’s call center at 1-800-843-5678.
This story was originally published February 20, 2025 at 11:42 AM with the headline "Husband and wife abducted 13-year-old from Virginia and raped her for days, feds say."
.jpg)