Ki-Shawn Crumity

By Jillian Pikora From Daily Voice

A 13-year-old girl missing from Louisiana was found hidden in a box in the basement of a Pittsburgh home, authorities announced on Friday, Oct. 31.

Ki-Shawn Crumity, 26, of Pittsburgh, was arrested after a joint investigation by the Pittsburgh Police Special Victims Unit and the FBI’s Violent Crimes Against Children Task Force. He faces multiple felony and misdemeanor charges, including Trafficking in Individuals, Statutory Sexual Assault, Unlawful Contact with a Minor, Sexual Assault, and Corruption of Minors, according to police and court records.

Officers executed a federal search warrant at a home on the 1200 block of Davis Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Brighton Heights neighborhood, where they found the girl concealed in a box covered by a gray sheet, according to the criminal complaint.

Investigators said the victim had been missing since late October from Baker, Louisiana. She told police she met Crumity on Snapchat, where he claimed he could arrange for her to be “adopted by a trusted adult.”

The girl traveled by bus to Washington, D.C., where she met a woman who offered to help and contacted Crumity. The two then traveled together to Pittsburgh, where the woman and Crumity allegedly shared a bed with the child in the basement of the home.

The complaint says Crumity gave the girl edibles and alcohol and sexually assaulted her “once or twice a day” during the week she was held. He later admitted to having sex with her, investigators wrote.

The victim told authorities that being at the hospital afterward was “the safest she ever felt.”

Crumity was taken to the Allegheny County Jail, where he was denied bail.

In a related arrest, Ronald Smith, 62, was taken into custody in Columbus, Georgia, on kidnapping and child endangerment charges after being seen with the girl earlier in her travels, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

The investigation remains active and ongoing.