Seattle police arrested a 20-year-old woman in Tukwila after an investigation by SPD and the Washington Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force revealed she’d been sexually abusing a 7-year-old girl, creating Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), and sharing it online.
The investigation started in January, when ICAC detectives were made aware of a CyberTip by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). According to the tip, the 20-year-old woman had been discussing sexually abusing the 7-year-old girl with another user on the platform, MeetMe.
SPD and the Washington Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force immediately started investigating and sent search warrants to an internet service provider, Google, and MeetMe, leading them to the 20-year-old suspect.
On September 17, ICAC investigators served a search warrant at the 20-year-old woman’s home and interviewed everyone inside. The woman admitted she was the user who’d been discussing the sexual abuse of a minor on MeetMe.
While investigators were searching the home, they found CSAM on the woman’s cell phone. The woman also admitted to taking illegal images of the 7-year-old girl and distributing them online on social media.
SPD and the Washington ICAC Task Force took the 20-year-old woman into custody. She was booked into the King County Jail for dealing in depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct in first degree and possession of depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct in the first degree.
“In this case, we identified a victim and provided full, wraparound service. We brought in advocates. We also called in a child forensic interviewer to ensure we were able to uncover every detail during this investigation,” Sgt. Shawn Martinell said.
Since January 2025, SPD’s ICAC Unit has assisted in more than 75 Internet Crimes Against Children arrests across the Puget Sound. Of those arrests, three were women. ICAC detectives say they’ve learned about 25 to 30 percent of offenders are women, who have been harder to detect and more cautious.
It’s notable that as the lead agency for the Washington Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, SPD’s ICAC Unit receives about 2,000 NCMEC CyberTips each month. Those are shared across the state with about 150 assigned each month and a large percentage staying within King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties. SPD assists other law enforcement agencies with about 80 percent of ICAC operations.
SPD ICAC detectives want you to know that exploitative cases are on the rise, including cases of sextortion and chats involving younger children. In this case, it started as a chat on the platform, MeetMe, not with images.
As internet access expands to children with new devices every day, detectives say they’re receiving more CyberTips and cases are trending higher regionally, leading to more arrests.
The NCMEC has more information and tips to protect your children on its website called, “Into the Cloud”. According to the portal, the average age a child gets a cellphone in the United States is 10 years old. The organization’s data also shows reports of online exploitation of children increased more than 97 percent last year. Visit “Into the Cloud” here for more information and helpful videos.
The Seattle Police Department is the Lead Agency for the Washington Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (WA ICAC TF). The WA ICAC TF is a multi-jurisdictional group of agencies dedicated to the protection of children from sexual abuse and exploitation. Learn more about SPD’s ICAC Unit here.
Incident Number: 2025-81563