Vigilante group and Allen County police work to charge child predator
- Jamie Duffy
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
Revealing text messages traced to 39 year old
ALLEN COUNTY, Ind. ---When it comes to cases involving child sex crimes, every detail needs to be investigated.
That we’ve learned as The Probable Cause podcast yesterday addressed concerns from outside groups who believed that the Allen County Prosecutor’s Office wasn’t working these cases.
Elijah Redd, formerly of Decatur, now of Fort Wayne, can tell you they are.
In April, the 39-year-old was charged with Felony 5 child solicitation for intercourse, Felony 6 dissemination of matter harmful to minors and misdemeanor inappropriate communication with a child (where) defendant used a computer network to commit the offense.
Redd was on the verge of going to trial next week.
Tomorrow Redd will plead guilty in front of Allen Superior Court Magistrate Sam Keirns and in that court, you allocate, you state what exactly you did wrong.
The investigation into Redd’s illicit activities began Aug. 2, 2025, when Officer Kristen Lewis with the Allen County Police Department/FBI Crimes Against Children Task Force, got a phone call from Predator Poachers of Illinois - Vigilante Group that Redd was having “egregiously sexually explicit” conversations with a decoy he believed was 11 years old.
Lewis noted that the conversation began in February 2025 on Facebook messenger.
Redd planned to meet up with the fictional 11-year-old girl for sex and his messages made that clear, court documents said.
Check out our 24-minute podcast on child sex crimes prosecution:
While most of them are too disgusting to include in an article such as this, here’s a couple:
“We’d also have to make sure your parents don’t find out” and
“watching your underage belly growing with my baby inside.”
Other messages make arrangements to meet up with the girl and plans to have sex with her.
Predator Poachers told Lewis his group was planning to confront Redd at his home on Sunnymede Drive Aug. 2 of last year. Lewis contacted New Haven Police Cpl. Simmons to alert his agency.
Police discovered that Redd no longer lived there, only his ex-wife. Information surfaced that Redd was living with his father in Spencerville.
Lewis continued to work with the Poachers group and told them to work with the Allen County Police Department if they intended to confront Redd, court documents said.
Poachers switched plans and told Lewis he planned to locate Redd at his employer on Aug. 4, 2025 because he felt more comfortable going to his work place. Once again, Lewis advised him to contact the ACPD which would be “in all of our best interests.”
Lt. Jason Baker of the ACPD responded to the Kaiser Tool Company when he was advised that a Poachers rep was there waiting for Redd to arrive for work. Baker went to the rep to discuss the case and explain how the investigation could be furthered by a law enforcement agency, court documents said.
At that point, Poachers agreed to turn over a Google drive with conversations between Redd and the decoy.
Lewis got a search warrant for the Facebook account of “slickbackredd” and matched that to Redd’s phone number and credit card information for PayPal, court documents said.
On Sept. 23, 2025, FBI Task Force officers arrived at Kaiser Tool when Redd was exiting that business and heading for his 2006 maroon Chevy Impala.
Lewis and another officer approached Redd who admitted “he knew he was talking to an 11 year old girl,” court documents said.
Redd turned over his Samsung cell phone on which were found 39 images that “depicted possible child sexual assault material within cached files.”
Charges were filed April 28 of this year by the Allen County Prosecutor’s office. Rebecca Grove is the lead deputy prosecutor on the case; David Felts his public defender.
The Probable Cause learned on Monday that Allen County Sheriff Troy Hershberger has assigned an officer full time to investigate crimes against children. That officer will be trained by the Intranet Crimes Against Children, he added.