MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A Memphis man is behind bars after police said he followed a 13-year-old girl to the bus stop Monday morning and asked her for oral sex.
The girl was walking down Yale Avenue to her bus stop in Binghampton around 7:30 a.m. when the man began trailing her.
“She kept looking behind her and kept seeing that he was there,” said the girl’s aunt and guardian, who didn’t want to be identified.
“All of a sudden, she said she turned around, he was just right there behind her,” she said.
The girl told investigators the man asked her to “chew him up,” then kept asking for oral sex.
“Nasty, vulgar stuff to the little girl about his, you know, private parts and stuff,” said the aunt.
At one point, the man attempted to lure her behind an abandoned apartment building.
“She said that he kind of gestured his hand out for her to take it and for them, I guess, to go behind the empty building.”
Instead, the girl went across the street where she spotted an MLGW worker and asked him to call police.
When officers arrived, they said the man they identified as 26-year-old James Williams tried to walk away, but they arrested him and charged him with solicitation of a minor.
WREG checked and Williams is not registered as a sex offender in the state of Tennessee, but court records indicate he still shouldn’t have been walking the streets.
He was sentenced to a little under one year in prison in late June after pleading guilty to stealing a car and received only 84 days credit for time served.
It wasn’t immediately clear why he was released early.
“I’m angry, but I’m proud of her of what she did and she thought quick on her feet. She really did,” said the girl’s aunt.
Williams will appear in court Tuesday morning.