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A Nebraska man has been accused of driving all the way to Florida to kidnap two sisters he met through the online game platform Roblox.
Hser Mu Lah Say, 19, is behind bars in Georgia, where authorities said they stopped his vehicle and rescued the girls, aged 12 and 14. Say was driving the girls back to Nebraska when he was pulled over.
According to the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, Say met the girls via Roblox during the summer of 2025 and continued communicating with them through Snapchat.
It does not appear that the siblings were physically harmed, authorities said during a press conference on Monday, February 2.
Say has been charged with two counts of kidnapping and two counts of interference with child custody.
“We talk regularly about the importance of parents and family members being vigilant about grooming and social media platforms and the impact it has on kids,” said Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek during the press conference. “In this case, I think we prevented something disastrous,” noting investigators still did not know what the suspect planned to do with the girls.
Budensiek said the girls went missing around 5 p.m. on the evening of Saturday, January 31, hours after their parents took their phones as punishment.
“The family members suggested to our deputies that an individual on [Snapchat] may be involved in these girls disappearing,” said Budensiek.
Police looked through the girls’ phones and found “a constant thread of communication between this individual and these two young girls to include the suspect … driving to Indiantown, Florida, to pick these girls up and leave,” Budensiek said.
Budensiek said that while “these girls went” with Say “willingly … their age suggested that they had been taken and were probably being removed from our area.”
“The family told us that they saw some weird things that were going on involving gifts, specifically food for the most part, showing up to the house,” Budensiek continued, adding it authorities contend Say engaged in “a grooming process … with these young girls.”
The sheriff said the suspect allegedly left Omaha, Nebraska, on the morning of Friday, January 30, and arrived in Indiantown on Saturday morning.
Budensiek said authorities were able to track Say’s vehicle and the route of travel he was taking back to Nebraska, so they had Georgia State Police locate the car and officers pulled him over.
Budensiek urged parents to keep closer tabs on their children’s online interactions.
“There is no application online that’s safe,” he said. “If you can communicate with somebody away from your house in the quiet of your own room, it can be a problem. So, parents have to be vigilant.”
Budensiek said that Say has refused to talk to detectives.
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It was not immediately clear if the suspect had retained an attorney. He will be asked to enter pleas upon his return to Florida.
In a statement, Roblox’s Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman said the matter was being investigated, describing the kidnapping as a “deeply troubling incident” before saying the company is committed to working with law enforcement. “Roblox has robust safety policies to protect users that go beyond many other platforms, and advanced safeguards that monitor for harmful content and communications,” Kaufman’s statement explained.
“We have filters designed to block the sharing of personal information, don’t allow user-to-user image or video sharing, and recently rolled out age checks globally to limit kids and teens to chatting with others their age by default,” it continued. “While no system is perfect, our commitment to safety never ends, and we continue to strengthen protections to keep users safe.”
Snapchat could not be reached for comment.
