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    • Pensacola woman faces new charges over Roblox chat
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    Pensacola woman faces new charges over Roblox chat

    Sakege Posted on

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    Nearly three weeks after a Pensacola woman was arrested for allegedly asking a 10-year-old boy to murder a 2 month old baby and several adults, the State Attorney’s Office filed more charges against them.

    Tara Sykes was arrested and charged with attempted second-degree murder while engaging in aggravated child abuse in October after the Department of Children and Families and the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office discovered she allegedly used the chat feature of the Roblox online gaming platform convincing a 10-year-old to drown, burn and drop a 2-month-old to death and then slit the throats of the baby’s temporary guardians.

    However, court records indicate that the State’s Attorney amended the charges filed against the 36-year-old man, who now faces four new charges. Sykes is now charged with attempted first-degree premeditated murder, two counts of solicitation to commit first-degree premeditated murder and one count of child abuse without causing great bodily harm.

    The News Journal contacted OSA for comment on the news charges but did not immediately receive a response.

    Sykes is scheduled to be arraigned on her new charges on Friday.

    Tara Sykes Allegedly Explained to 10-Year-Old Boy How to Kill Everyone in the House

    Between Sept. 26 and Oct. 17, Sykes allegedly explained in detail to the 10-year-old boy how to kill the 2-month-old child, the two guardians and the guardians’ adult daughter, according to police records.

    “Sykes ordered the 10-year-old boy to drown the baby in the bathtub, burn him with boiling water and throw him on the ground to kill him,” the sheriff’s office said. “In addition, Sykes had instructed the 10-year-old boy how to kill the adults he was temporarily living with by slitting their throats with a knife while they slept and burning down their house by spraying the sheets with aerosol and setting them on fire.”

    According to police documents, the adult daughter of the children’s guardians discovered aerosol-sprayed sheets along with a lighter.

    When the 10-year-old girl spoke to investigators, she told them that she “was terrified” of Sykes and that she “felt that if she didn’t follow instructions, Sykes would hurt or kill her, too.”

    Several adults in the home say they found the messages sent by Tara Sykes.

    Although the names of witnesses are redacted, police reports detail that both the foster guardians and their adult daughter spoke to authorities about Roblox chat messages between Sykes and the 10-year-old boy.

    The daughter told investigators she found screenshots of messages between Sykes and the boy, and located a lighter with “soaked sheets” in the bedroom, according to police reports.

    The researchers also spoke with both foster guardians about the messages. One of them said she saw the Roblox messages but didn’t see their context. The second told investigators that she “personally read the Roblox messages in which Sykes ordered (the child) to drop (the baby) on the floor.”

    She told investigators she also read the messages that instructed the 10-year-old girl to “burn (redacted) the residence by spraying the sheets with aerosol and setting them on fire and murder (redacted) by slitting her throat.”

    Roblox says they found no ‘instructions of violence’ messages between Tara Sykes and boy

    The News Journal contacted Roblox regarding the investigation into the messages between Sykes and the 10-year-old boy, and the company’s Senior Director of Communications Policy, Eric Porterfield, said they have not found any messages containing the requests that Sykes is alleged to have committed. .

    “We have completed our internal investigation and are analyzing activity on our platform using the two usernames provided by authorities,” Porterfield said. “While they communicated on Roblox, the conversations on our platform were political and did not contain the alleged instructions for violence that resulted in the arrest of Tara Alexis Sykes.”

    Porterfield said the company complies with all laws regarding retention of chat logs, including deleted messages, by retaining all chat history for two years. He confirmed to the News Journal that Roblox’s investigation included any deleted messages between Sykes and the 10-year-old, which he said did not yet contain the “instructions for violence.”

    Although Roblox says it has found no messages between Sykes and the 10-year-old boy that illustrate violent rhetoric or a request to commit murder, ECSO Col. Mike Ward and Sheriff Chip Simmons told the News Journal that witnesses in the case are credible and gave credible statements.

    “It’s as simple as we have three people telling us that they saw these messages on that particular social media platform,” Sheriff Chip Simmons told the News Journal. “It’s not inconceivable that they would have been eliminated.”

    Sakege
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