36-year-old Florida Woman Arrested for Instructing Child to Commit Murder Through Video Game Platform
A 36-year-old woman in Florida has been arrested after reportedly contacting a 10-year-old child via a social media video game platform and telling the child to kill a newborn infant as well as the adults the children were living with at the time. Tara Alexis Sykes was arrested last week and charged with one count of attempted murder while committing aggravated child abuse, authorities said.
According to a news release from the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, on October 17, 2024, deputies got a report from the Gulf Coast Kid’s House, a child advocacy facility, about a 2-month-old kid who had sustained “serious injuries after being dropped on the kitchen floor by a 10-year-old.”
Investigators discovered that Sykes and the 10-year-old spoke online through the popular game platform Roblox, which also includes a social networking component that allows players to chat. In this case, prosecutors allege that Sykes utilized the platform to teach the 10-year-old various methods of committing infanticide.
“In the communication thread, Sykes instructed the 10-year-old on various methods to kill the infant,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “Sykes told the 10-year-old to drown the newborn in the bathtub, burn it with scorching water, and then drop it on the floor to kill it.
Furthermore, Sykes had taught the 10-year-old how to murder the adults he was temporarily staying with by cutting their throats with a knife while they slept and destroying their house by dousing bed sheets with aerosol spray and lighting them on fire.
Authorities said the 10-year-old went so far as to spray sheets with the aerosol spray, but the child was eventually “unable to carry out the instructions.”
“I’ve been in law enforcement for over 40 years and have never seen anything quite like this,” Sheriff Chip W. Simmons stated in a statement after Sykes was arrested. “I am deeply horrified by the circumstances and the idea that someone could think like this, let alone order such atrocities to be carried out. “There is something seriously wrong with her.”
Sykes and her husband were arrested earlier this year and charged with one count of child abuse and endangerment for letting the 20-year-old man who impregnated their 14-year-old daughter reside with them in their family home, according to court papers seen by Law&Crime.
That case began on May 28, 2024, when officers rushed to the Sykes’ home in the 3000 block of Robertson Road at the request of a Department of Children and Families investigator concerned about a 14-year-old girl who was 31 weeks pregnant and appeared to be malnourished.
According to a probable cause statement, Sykes and her husband both admitted knowing their daughter had been impregnated by a 20-year-old acquaintance, and neither parent reported the “known sexual battery” against their daughter. The parents also allegedly threatened to kill the 20-year-old unless his grandmother paid them $10,000, which prosecutors claim she did.
Both cases against Sykes remain open. She is currently being held in the Escambia County Jail without bond.
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