Toby Studabaker, the former US marine who sparked an international manhunt when he fled across Europe with a 12-year-old English girl he met on the internet, admitted abduction and incitement to gross indecency yesterday. He could now face extradition to the US, where a federal grand jury returned a four-count indictment against him last December on charges relating to sexual exploitation of a child.
Studabaker, 32, spoke in a whisper at Manchester crown court as he pleaded guilty to the charges. He will be sentenced on April 2. The stocky ex-marine with close cropped mousy hair held his head in his hands during the proceedings. He also glanced at the girl's parents at the back of the courtroom.
The case caused concern after it emerged that Studabaker, from Three Rivers, Michigan, had been prepared to travel thousands of miles to meet his victim, whom he had met in an internet chatroom and groomed for 11 months. They began communicating by email when she was just 11 years and eight months old. He initally thought she was 17, and she thought he was 28.
Several weeks later, both the girl and Studabaker admitted their real ages to each other, but continued to send emails. After his arrest in Germany last July, Studabaker had consistently told police that he thought the girl was a lot older. He denied any sexual activity had taken place.
But the prosecutor, Beverley Lunt, said their discussions had developed into cybersex. "In particular, there is a long exchange where he, in graphic detail, describes himself performing acts of sexual foreplay and oral sex on her and then graphic detail of having sexual intercourse with her.
"Her parts of this conversation are all significantly more childlike, innocent, romantic almost, talking of kissing him, putting her arms around his back or neck ... looking into his eyes and saying he is beautiful. It is clear that even after all that has happened she has no concept that she was groomed by the defendant so that she would not object to the sexual activity that took place once they were out of the UK."
The girl used her home and school email address to write to Studabaker. On the day before he arrived in the UK, he emailed her at an address on her school computer. He reminded her to bring hair dye for both of them.
When she left home early on Saturday, she told her parents she was going shopping with two schoolfriends. But she had taken her passport and spare clothing. At 11.23pm, having not heard from her, the parents reported her missing. Her mother handed police officers a letter which had been returned in July or August 2002 having insufficient postage. It had been written by their daughter and was addressed to Toby Studabaker in America.
A check in her diary found further references to Toby Studabaker, or Taz as she called him. One entry read: "Maybe if Taz comes over it'll be better, easier ya know? Well I need somebody who understands me better. The bright side right? Erm ... Taz loves me, he's coming over the end of June (I think) I'm going on holiday and ... I only have 26 hours before I have a week off school."
Back in Three Rivers, Studabaker had told his unsuspecting brother Leo that he had met an English college girl on the internet and was going over to see her. "He'd even joshed that he might bring her back as his bride," Leo said in an interview at the time. A few days later, Studabaker telephoned and said he was "real mad" at the girl for hiding her real age.
But a search of his home computer revealed that he had always known her true age. She had answered a list of set questions in an email in January 2003, in which she said she was 12. When he booked flight tickets for the girl, he told the travel agent that one of the tickets was for his 12-year-old niece.
Studabaker is also accused of sending more than 500 emails to a 12-year-old girl from Fort Myers, Florida. He also was found to have written love letters to a deaf teenager. The relationship ended when the girl's mother turned up and confronted him, but no complaint was made to police.
Five years ago, he was accused of making sexual advances to two young relatives. He was charged with criminal sexual conduct, but the case never came to court.
He served in Afghanistan and described his experience there as "one of the best" he had had. He was discharged from the marines on Independence Day, July 4, last year with a shoulder injury. Within days, he was arranging to visit his 12-year-old victim in Europe.
Ostensibly, Studabaker appeared to be respectable. He is a former Bible scholar whose wife Jenny died of bone cancer three years ago. But her sister, Dawn Roland, said in an interview: "He was very good at playing the grieving husband - but that was so far from the truth. He didn't have anything to do with her after the second round of chemotherapy treatment. It fried her brains and he couldn't be bothered to look after her."
When he met up with the 12-year-old English girl, she was a bit nervous and Studabaker told her it was okay and they would get through it. They then flew to London, and from there to Paris.
In the French capital they went to a hotel recommended by a taxi driver. They booked into a room with twin beds, but when they woke up on the Sunday night they had sex on her bed. "It just happened," she told police. "We were kissing and we were like on the bed and I don't know, it just happened." They also bought vodka to drink in the hotel.
When he was arrested by the German authorities, he maintained that the girl had told him she was 18 or 19 years old. After meeting her in a chatroom, he told her he was finding it difficult to get over the death of his wife, and she told him she had family problems and was depressed.
He said at no time did they have sexual intercourse, but forensic examination proved that Studabaker had sex with the girl. She told the police that they would email each other daily and she would use the computer for four hours a day, in the evening after school.
Mr Justice Leveson said: "It is important to underline that neither of these offences concerns an act of sexual intercourse. Sentence will not be passed on the fact of his having sexual intercourse with a girl under 13."
The girl's family said in a statement: "First and foremost, we would all like to thank everyone who has supported us through this terrible ordeal. We are very happy with the outcome today, which hopefully sends out a strong message to the public about the seriousness of this case.
"We feel that this is only the tip of the iceberg and in order to stop this from happening again there must be many changes, as we would not like anyone else to go through the things we have. The time that our daughter was away from us was absolutely horrendous and we hope that we can now put it all behind us and move on with the rest of our lives."
