Utah man, 60, repeatedly raped 11-year-old girl at sleepovers and sent her obscene Snapchat messages
HEBER, UTAH: A 60-year-old man, Dennis Early Skiby, is facing several felony charges after being accused of raping an 11-year old girl, in addition to touching her inappropriately and sending her sexually explicit Snapchat messages. Skiby was charged at the Fourth District Court with two counts of rape of a child, a first-degree felony and two counts of sodomy upon a child, a first-degree felony.
Skiby's actions were brought to the attention of the police on September 2, when the girl's parents showed the police the Snapchat messages he had been sending to the young girl. According to the court documents, Skiby sent the girl messages like "I want to make love to you so bad it makes my body shiver", "I miss you and I love you", and "Please make sure you delete these messages." The girl's refusal to delete the messages helped bring Skiby into court. Police also found a picture featuring the young girl and Skiby together in the man's bed. In the picture, Skiby had removed his shirt. The charges state that "(the mother) was shocked with the messages between the two of them," which dated back through most of 2020.
According to KUTV, both the girl and her mother were interviewed by the police about Skiby's behavior at the Wasatch County Children Justice Center, where the girl said that while Skiby was a "great guy", his actions made her unable to trust him. The girl's relationship to Skiby, as well as her name, has been withheld by KUTV to protect the victim, but the court documents reveal that the girl spent several sleepovers over at Skiby's home.
According to these documents, a group of friends that had included the girl had all watched a scary movie at Skiby's home and, afterwards, slept in his bed. After this, the girl began sleeping in Skiby's bed during sleepovers during which he would touch her inappropriately. Skiby has been charged with making the girl take off her pants and repeatedly touch his private parts, and having raped her more than once. The girl claimed that this happened "a lot".
Social media messaging services are becoming a common medium through which adults send inappropriate messages to underage children, making parental supervision easier and easier to avoid. In a similar incident earlier in September, a Pennsylvania dance teacher allegedly raped a 15-year-old student whom she had taught since the age of 10 over 50 times — she also groomed him over several years, keeping in contact through mobile messaging services, and texts. Investigators found inappropriate text messages between him and the student, as well as nude photos she reportedly sent him. In addition to this, police said the duo exchanged images on Snapchat and had rekindled their sexual relationship in 2019.
As for Skiby, there are as of yet no reports on when his court date might be, or if he has even been arrested. However, an official warrant for his arrest was issued on September 17.