How Wichita police caught sex offender accused of raping girl walking home from Dillons

A woman’s GPS tracking device on a girl’s phone helped Wichita police catch the sex offender accused of kidnapping and raping the child as she walked home from Dillons last month.

Anthony Craig Seymour, 58, is charged with several crimes in connection to the Nov. 18 abduction and sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl. He is charged in Sedgwick County District Court with aggravated kidnapping, rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, aggravated robbery and criminal possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.

Seymour is a lifetime registered sex offender in the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s registry for a 2004 conviction in Sedgwick County for the rape of a 14-year-old girl.

An affidavit written by a Wichita Police Department detective and released by the court details the investigation that led to his November arrest.

The 15-year-old girl told police investigators that she was walking to the Dillons store at Douglas and Hillside when a man in a dark-colored car yelled at her “you’re too cute to run over.” She had never seen the man before and called a friend before going into the store to use the restroom.

The girl said she then started to walk home while still on the phone with the friend. She told her friend that she saw the man in the car and that she was scared he was going to follow her, so she started to run across the parking lot.

The man pulled his car in front of her, the girl told police. He then put a knife against her throat and grabbed her by her hair, forcing her into the passenger seat of the vehicle.

The girl had an incoming call on her phone, and she told the man that he should answer it because the caller will track her phone. A struggle ensued, but the girl stopped wrestling for the phone after she felt what she thought was a knife poking her stomach.

The girl told police that she asked the man if he wanted money, and he responded with “no, I want sex.” She told police that she was afraid he was going to kill her. The man then drove to the 300 block of North Volutsia, where he sexually assaulted the girl.

Meanwhile, the woman who had called the girl was on the phone with 911 to report a possible abduction. She told dispatchers that when the call was answered, she heard the voice of an unknown man yelling “get in the (expletive) car” and the girl saying “no” before the call disconnected. The woman used a GPS tracker on the girl’s phone to track her to the 300 block of North Volutsia, which is a few blocks from the Dillons store.

Two officers arrived in the area to find a vehicle traveling without its lights on. The girl then rolled down the window and tried to flag down the officer. Wearing only a shirt and a bra, she jumped out of the moving car, which ran over her hand. The man drove away, and the girl was taken to Wesley Medical Center.

The woman tracked the girl’s phone, which was still in the car, to a business parking lot about a block south of the Dillons. Employees of the business allowed police to view surveillance video, which showed a car pulling into the parking lot and the driver dropping the phone from his window. Police got a tag number, which was registered to Seymour.

Police went to Seymour’s home address in the 1900 block of North Lorraine, which is listed in the KBI’s offender registry. The car was in the driveway, and officers were able to see in plain view that a knife and the girl’s property were inside.

Seymour came out of his home and talked with police, who took him in for questioning. He told investigators that someone had borrowed his vehicle while he was getting high at his brother’s house. He then refused to speak further without a lawyer.

He remains held in the Sedgwick County Jail in lieu of a $250,000 bond.

This story was originally published December 4, 2019 at 5:21 PM.