This is from the Texarkana Texas Police Department.Early Monday morning, a mom woke up and realized her 13 year old daughter wasn’t asleep in her bed like she was supposed to be. She started looking around for her daughter and found her in a car parked out in front of the house with 30 year old Tyjae Clark. When the mom confronted him, he kicked the girl out of the car and sped off. She immediately called 911 and was able to give us a description of the car and its license plate number.
A short time later, a Wake Village Police Department officer located the vehicle and stopped it. However, Clark took off running from the car as soon as it stopped and disappeared into the darkness. We helped set up a perimeter in the area, and Officer Cody Cox spotted him walking along the nearby railroad tracks and arrested him. Because we didn’t yet know exactly what the deal was with the 13 year old girl being in his car, he was originally only charged with Evading Detention and transported to the Bi-State Jail. However, Detective Casey Schmidt hit the ground running on the case when he got to work that morning.
After reviewing the reports, he got a search warrant for Clark’s phone and discovered that there were numerous inappropriate messages on social media between Clark and the girl – even though the girl clearly told him that she was only 13 years old. He also learned that Clark is a registered sex offender who has a lifetime requirement to register. Based upon the information and evidence that he found, Detective Schmidt obtained felony arrest warrants for Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child and Online Solicitation of a Minor. He served those warrants while Clark was still in jail on the Evading Detention charge from yesterday morning. The total bond for the two felony charges against Clark was set at $400,000.
