Former Rare Staff
A child molester who had eluded capture for five years has been tracked down thanks to WXYZ-TV, which featured Robert Hinton as “the most wanted” person in Detroit this week in a crime stoppers-type segment.
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Hinton, who has already served time in Indiana for 10 counts of child molestation against two young girls, was released from prison five years into a 12-year sentence and did not register as a sex offender.
Five years later, he’s finally been tracked down, thanks to the vigilance of people who witnessed the news segment. It’s not clear if the “view” was online or on TV, but let’s take a look at the time stamps of their video post and then the comment the news outlet left under it hours later.
What started at 9 a.m. as “Have you seen this guy?” turned into “Update: A 7 Action News view sent a tip to U.S. Marshals and Hinton was captured” by 11:12 a.m. yesterday.
Problem solved.
The channel confirmed that the tip sent law enforcement to Eastpointe, Mich., where Hinton was found in hiding.
According to WXYZ, Hinton and anyone who’s helped him would face charges in Indiana and in Michigan, where he clearly did not register as a sex offender.
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Authorities plan to charge him federally according to the “Adam Walsh Act,” signed into law in 2006 by George W. Bush to ” protect children from sexual exploitation and violent crime, to prevent child abuse and child pornography, to promote Internet safety, and to honor the memory of Adam Walsh and other child crime victims.”
Adam Walsh was the son of John Walsh, who went on to host “America’s Most Wanted” after his son’s murder in 1981.
The 6-year-old boy was abducted from a Sears department store and found dead 16 days later, brutally murdered.
Rare reached out to WXYZ for comment Sunday, but we have yet to hear back.
