Ohio Man Indicted in Death of Indiana Teen He Met Online, With Federal Prosecutors Alleging Kidnapping, Sexual Exploitation and Dismemberment After Her Disappearance
COLUMBUS, OH — A Columbus man has been federally indicted in the kidnapping and death of a 17-year-old Indiana girl whom investigators say he met online through gaming. Prosecutors allege Tyler Nike Thomas, 39, was involved in a series of crimes that ended with Hailey Buzbee’s disappearance and death.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio said the case includes nine federal counts tied to Buzbee, of Fishers, Indiana. Authorities say the pair started communicating when she was 15 and that the contact grew increasingly sexual over time.
Thomas is also accused of trying to cover up what happened after Buzbee vanished from her home in Fishers on Jan. 5.
Investigators say the two met through Roblox and League of Legends
According to prosecutors, Thomas and Buzbee connected while playing online games, including Roblox and League of Legends. The indictment says the conversations began when she was still 15, and that by May 2024 Thomas was trying to persuade her to engage in sexual activity.
That timeline is central to the federal case. Prosecutors say the online relationship was not isolated or brief, but developed over months before Buzbee disappeared in January.
Federal authorities have not described every exchange in detail, but the indictment alleges Thomas used digital communication to build the contact that later led to the crimes charged against him.
Buzbee disappeared after leaving home in Fishers on Jan. 5
Buzbee was reported missing after she left her home in Fishers on Jan. 5. Investigators say Thomas drove overnight from Columbus to Fortville, Indiana, picked her up early on Jan. 6 and then took her back to Ohio.
Prosecutors allege that Buzbee was killed during the course of the crimes. The indictment does not spell out every step of the killing, but it says her death occurred in connection with the kidnapping and the sexual conduct allegations.
The federal case places Thomas’s movements and Buzbee’s disappearance on a tight timeline, with investigators tracking activity from Indiana into central Ohio.
Phone data tied Thomas to an Airbnb in Logan and Wayne National Forest
Investigators reviewing Thomas’s cellphone data say he went to an Airbnb in Logan, Ohio, on the afternoon of Jan. 6. The next morning, phone records reportedly placed him near the North Country Trail Trailhead in Wayne National Forest for about five hours.
Authorities later recovered Buzbee’s remains in that area. Federal prosecutors say the location data helped connect Thomas to places where he is accused of disposing of evidence and hiding the body.
The indictment says the sequence of travel was part of the broader effort to conceal the crime after Buzbee’s death.
Prosecutors allege attempts to conceal the body and digital evidence
The indictment accuses Thomas of decapitating, dismembering, burying and discarding Buzbee’s body in an effort to hide what happened. It also says a forensic review of his phone uncovered deleted communications with Buzbee.
Those deleted messages reportedly included Snapchat exchanges and sexually explicit images that prosecutors say were taken at Thomas’s Columbus home and at the Logan-area Airbnb. Federal authorities are using that digital material as part of the case showing contact, intent and concealment.
The allegations are among the most serious in the federal charging papers and go well beyond the kidnapping count alone.
Thomas now faces charges that could bring life in prison or death
Thomas was first arrested on local charges in January, but those charges were dismissed after federal authorities took him into custody in February, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. He now faces counts including kidnapping resulting in death, traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor resulting in death, transporting a minor for criminal sexual activity resulting in death and sexual exploitation of a minor.
He is also charged with attempted enticement of a minor, obstruction of justice and accessing digital materials depicting child sexual abuse. Some of the charges carry a possible sentence of life in prison or death if he is convicted.
U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II said prosecutors worked with federal, state and local law enforcement over the past eight months to bring the case forward and pursue justice for Buzbee and her family.
Federal case centers on a months-long effort to trace the crime
The indictment presents the case as a layered investigation that combined online communications, travel records, cellphone data and digital forensic work. Prosecutors say that evidence helped reconstruct how contact that began in gaming led to the girl’s disappearance and death.
The federal charges also reflect the scope of the investigation, which spans Indiana and Ohio and includes several locations authorities say were used in the course of the alleged crimes. For now, the case remains focused on the allegations in the indictment and the evidence prosecutors say supports them.
Thomas is presumed innocent unless and until he is proven guilty in court.
