Dylan Drake Williams knew the girl he had befriended on Snapchat was 15. But that didn’t stop him, federal prosecutors said Friday, from asking her how badly she wanted to be kidnapped, and whether she would be his “sex slave.”
And Williams, an airman stationed at Dover Air Force Base, eventually followed through, according to court filings. He drove to the girl’s Falls Township home Aug. 20, instructed her to leave her phone behind and delete some of the incriminating text messages, and took her to his home, where, the girl told police, he raped her.
Williams, 27, has been charged in U.S. District Court in Delaware with coercion and enticement, transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. Prosecutors in Bucks County have filed a parallel case, in which he faces similar charges, including unlawful contact with a minor and corruption of minors.
He also faces a third, separate investigation in Kent County, Delaware, where he is charged with rape.
Williams will remain in federal custody ahead of a detention hearing later this month, according to court records. Neither his federal attorney, Conor Wilson, nor the attorney representing him in Bucks County, Ellis Klein, returned calls for comment.
The girl told police she began messaging Williams in April, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. He knew she was underage, she said, but asked her to send him explicit photos of herself, which he returned in kind.
Eventually, Williams arranged to meet the girl in Bucks County, and drove to a basketball court not far from her home, the affidavit said. There, Williams coerced the girl to perform a sex act in his car.
Afterward, the two continued to exchange sexually charged messages. In early August, Williams asked the girl if he could see her again, telling her he wanted “to take ownership” of her and was planning to drive to her home to pick her up in the middle of the night.
As they planned the meeting, the girl, fearful, asked Williams if he was going to kill her, but he reassured her, telling her he genuinely liked her, and that she “was brave for doing this.”
Before dawn on Aug. 20, the girl left her home through her bedroom window and walked to Williams’ nearby car. Per his instructions, she had left her cell phone behind.
Her parents, finding her phone and reading some of the text messages the two had exchanged, called Falls Township Police. Detectives there were able to identify Williams through his Snapchat account, and find that he was enlisted at the Dover base.
Meanwhile, Williams drove the girl more than 100 miles back to Delaware, where he hid her in the basement apartment he was renting. The girl later told police he forced her to have sex, ignoring her complaints that she was in pain.
When police arrived at the base, Williams admitted that the girl was at his home, and that he had sex with her.
He said he knew that getting caught would ruin his life, and said he preferred the death penalty, because he “was too much of a coward to take his life,” the affidavit said.