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Criminal Records - Most Wanted |
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Profile |
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Name: Jeremy Paul Duffer
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Race: White |
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Age Now: 37 |
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Height: 5'11" |
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Weight: 190 - 240 lbs. |
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Hair (Color, Description, Facial Hair): Brown |
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Eyes (Color and Correction): Blue
Glasses |
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Wanted for :
Aggravated Sexual Battery, 4 Counts, Nashville, TN
Rape of a Child, 7 Counts, Nashville, TN
Especially Aggravated Sexual Exploitation of a minor, Nashville, TN
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Location(s) |
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Last Seen : Hermitage, TN |
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Possible Location : Lenoir City, TN
Knoxville, TN
Memphis , TN
Nashville, TN |
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Last Known : Hermitage, TN |
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Traits |
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Claims to be agoraphobic (fear of crowds) |
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Enjoys role-playing and war games |
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May hang out in game stores that specialize in role-playing and war games |
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Doesn't like crowded areas |
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Favorite snack is Funyuns |
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If he goes to a movie, he goes 3 or 4 weeks after a movie is released to avoid crowds, or Wednesdays in the morning, when there are no people. |
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Doesn't like moving around too much |
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Case Story |
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A Game Store, But No Fun |
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In August of 2001, a single mom moved with her two sons, a 10-year-old and a 14-year-old, to Nashville suburb Hermitage, Tennessee. She never imagined that her job transfer would lead to one of the worst experiences a mother would ever have to deal with.
The woman wasn't even settled in to the area when she and her youngest son ventured to a laundromat at a nearby strip mall. The 10-year-old boy noticed a nearby store called "The Game Keep." Her son went in and was quickly greeted by the manager-- a man named Jeremy Duffer. The mother also met Duffer, and found out that the store specialized in role-playing and war games. Her son was immediately interested in learning to play the games. The woman noticed that there were boys the same age as her son in the store. She thought that it would be a great idea to bring her son to the store where he could play games and make new friends.
But what started as a playdate turned into a closer relationship. As the son started frequenting the store at least once a week, Duffer became very close to the boy and with his mom, to the point that he was even invited to their home for dinner. The relationship was so close that Jeremy Duffer once told the mother that he felt like a big brother to her son. |
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Trust Tests Arise |
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The following year the number of visits to the store increased and Duffer even picked up the boy for "game nights." In the summer of 2002, Duffer and they boy traveled together to a big gaming tournament out of state. Mom didn't know it, but police say things had gotten too close between Jeremy Duffer and the little boy - that Duffer was sexually abusing him.
The mom began noticing that Duffer was too attached to her son, so when school started she registered him in other activities. According to the mother, Duffer wasn't happy about losing time with her son. But what upset him worse was when she moved with her sons to Smyrna, a town about 45 minutes away from the store.
Police say Duffer was not going to let the boy go so easily. He didn't own a car so he went out and bought one so that he could pick the boy up and take him to the store to play games.
In the summer of 2004, the mother asked her son if anything was going on between him and Duffer. She had already confronted Duffer about the topic and he denied anything was going on, but she needed to hear it from her son. The boy also vehemently denied that anything was going on and resented the accusation. A short time later, the boy went to North Carolina to spend three weeks with his father and his mother discovered that Duffer had called her son forty times in one day! |
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Finally, The Truth Comes Out |
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In August, the young boy finally revealed the shocking truth that he had been hiding from her mom -- Duffer, the man she trusted, had been sexually abusing her own son for almost two years. Police say that Duffer had threatened the boy that if he ever told anyone about the abuse he would be taken away from his mother and that she wouldn't love him anymore.
Both of them went to the police and told them their story. The detectives felt like they had a strong case but knew they could always use more evidence. That's why they asked the mother if she would wear a wire and see if Duffer would make a confession to her about the sexual abuse. The woman - willing to do anything to help her son - agreed immediately.
The mother called Jeremy and asked him if she could take him out to dinner. He agreed. But when she picked him up, she started to talk about how worried she was about her son, that she had found something that made her believe he was going to hurt himself. She told Duffer she needed his help - that if he cared about her son - he would tell her what was going on between them. She even used Duffer's own lies against him, telling him that she couldn't go to the police about this because she would lose her son. The ruse worked. Detectives say they listened as Duffer confessed to the woman about the abuse. Later that night, investigators arrested Duffer and say he also confessed to them about the sexual abuse. Police say they also searched Duffer's apartment and found pornographic pictures of the little boy.
Duffer sat in jail for almost 16 months awaiting trial. Then in January 2006, a man from Kentucky - who admittedly didn't really know Duffer - paid $90,000 to bond him out. One of the conditions of Duffer's bond was that he had to wear an electronic monitoring device on his ankle. Approximately 5 days before his trial, police say Duffer disconnected the device and disappeared. Now police are looking for him and believe he could be anywhere in the state of Tennessee--and most likely visiting game stores. |
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