A man accused of walking from Indiana to Wisconsin to have sex with a teenager was arrested and released a month earlier.
32-year-old Tommy Lee Jenkins was arrested last week after prosecutors said Jenkins tried to meet a 14-year-old girl in Neenah, Wisconsin. The girl named "Kylee" was a Winnebago County Sheriff's Deputy working with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. When Jenkins arrived in Winnebago County he was apprehended by local and federal authorities.
Newly obtained reports revealed Jenkins was arrested in Winnebago County in September. He was initially charged with child abduction and disorderly conduct. A child sexual assault charge was added days later. However, those charges were later dropped. It was unclear as to why. A reporter reached out to the Winnebago County District Attorney's office, but did not get a response.
Records show Jenkins was arrested in September after he was found at a storage unit just outside Oshkosh. There were two naked kids with him.
The children, their mother, and another woman were living with Jenkins at the time, and he occasionally took care of the kids.
Initially, Jenkins told investigators he got into a fight with the mother of the children, left with the kids, and got caught in the storm. He said they looked for shelter then had them take their clothes off because he did not want them to get hypothermia. Jenkins said they took shelter in a storage unit where a passerby saw them and called law enforcement.
Deputies heard differing stories as to what was going on in the home where Jenkins stayed. However, according to the report, Jenkins admitted to leaving with the kids that night without permission because he was scared that their mother would take them away.
Less than a month later, Child Protective Services filed a complaint with the sheriff's office. The CPS complaint said the kids' father was getting threats from Jenkins on Facebook and that Jenkins was posting pictures of the kids on the social media site.
This article was originally written by Mary Jo Ola for WTMJ.
