BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — A 10-year-old girl expected to visit a park near her Taft, California home with a 27-year-old man she met on Roblox, according to her account to investigators. However, during their drive and conversation, they agreed to go to a park that was a bit further away.
She got distracted during the drive, the girl told investigators. It wasn’t until three hours later she realized she was nowhere near her home.
“Once I noticed we were far from my house, I wanted to return home but didn’t know how to express that,” the girl explained to Kern County sheriff’s investigators as per the newly-released court documents. “I considered how to ask him,” she mentioned.
The man, identified as Matthew Naval, was apprehended on April 13 when they were discovered together in his car at a strip mall in Elk Grove, situated over 250 miles away from Taft. He is currently detained with a bail set at $1.35 million on charges of kidnapping and several child sex-related offenses.
In a jailhouse interview with Nexstar’s KGET, Naval said the girl looked young but told him she was 18. He said there was no sexual contact, and they “pretty much” just held hands.
When questioned by detectives, however, Naval, 27, said they kissed a few times, and he would have “really considered it” if she’d been willing to engage in sexual activity. He tried to rent a hotel room in Fresno but was turned away because he didn’t have two forms of ID, according to the documents.
His attorney, Mark Anthony Raimondo, has said Naval has autism and views the world differently. Naval was only looking to make a friend, he said.
One of the stranger details contained in the documents came from friends of the girl: they told a deputy the girl said she was going to pay someone to kidnap her.
The girl posted a video on TikTok with the caption, “First time getting kidnapped, lmao,” with her camera aimed out of a moving vehicle, the reports say.
The search
The girl was reported missing the morning of April 13; a relative had last seen her the night before.
Her family used an app that showed the girl’s phone was near Elk Grove and connected to a mobile hotspot called “Matthew’s iPhone,” according to the documents. They also found a friend of hers on the popular world-building and gaming app Roblox who had the username “TheMatt3798.”
Investigators obtained information for that account and identified the user as Naval, documents said. A records check gave them his address and the license plate of his gray Honda Civic.
License plate readers captured that vehicle in Kern County at 3:17 and 4:10 a.m. on April 13, the reports say.
Detectives pinged the girl’s phone and notified Elk Grove police of the investigation, keeping them updated with the car’s location. An Elk Grove police officer found the car in a parking lot at 3:35 p.m. with Naval in the driver’s seat and the girl in the front passenger seat, according to the documents.
Naval is due back in court next month.
