In separate incidents, two men from Washington County were arrested on child sex crime charges.
On Monday, April 28, Indiana State Police arrested a Pekin man on child pornography charges, following a multi-state investigation initiated by cyber tips.
The investigation began in January of this year when the Bay County Sheriff’s Department in Florida referred cyber tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to the ISP Sellersburg Post’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force. The tips pointed to a suspect in Indiana. ISP detectives in Sellersburg identified 48-year-old Jerame Jan Hall of Pekin as the suspect through their investigation.
On Monday, ISP executed a search warrant at Hall’s residence in Pekin. Hall was taken into custody without incident and booked into Washington County Jail on two preliminary counts of possession of child pornography, with additional charges pending.
The Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force is a multi-agency Task Force that investigates and prosecutes persons who use the internet to sexually exploit or entice children. The Indiana State Police oversees the Task Force.
On Tuesday, Apr. 29, Indiana State Police with assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service, arrested a Washington County man in Louisville, KY, on Tuesday, April 29, 2025, on four felony counts of child molestation.
According to ISP Sgt. Carey Huls, in March of this year, an Indiana Department of Child Services family case manager reported allegations to ISP Detective Travis Baker, who launched a criminal investigation alongside DCS personnel. The investigation included a forensic interview at a local child advocacy center, which indicated illegal sexual contact between a child and Benjamin D. Turner, 40, of Washington County.
At the conclusion of Det. Baker’s investigation, an arrest warrant was issued for Turner, who was believed to be in the Louisville area. Officers with the U.S. Marshals located Turner last Tuesday in Louisville and took him into custody without incident. Turner is awaiting extradition to Indiana to face charges.