BEAUFORT COUNTY, S.C. —
The State Law Enforcement Division said Thursday that three men in South Carolina were charged with taking part in a plan to traffic a missing child.
SLED records show that Alban Bryan, 63, of St. Helena Island, Guy Frank Talley III, 27, of Beaufort, and William James Youmans, 34, of Beaufort were arrested and charged on Tuesday.
Bryan faced charges of trafficking a victim younger than 18 years old and helping a child get into trouble.
Two counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a child and third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor were brought against Talley. The victim was under 18 years old.
Youmans was accused of providing a child with drugs and selling a victim under the age of 18.
A citation from SLED says that another guy, 37-year-old Samuel Cyrus Blackman, was charged with simple possession of marijuana during the investigation.
Documents related to warrants say that Bryan and Youmans found a place for a lost girl under 18 years old to live and gave her drugs.
The papers say Bryan, Youmans, and Talley “recruit, entice, solicit, isolate, harbor, transports, provide, obtain” the girl so they could perform sexual acts for money, even though they knew she was under 18. The guys were said to have kept her in “a human sex trafficking scheme.”
According to the documents, investigators also found proof that Talley sent, received, sold, bought, traded, or asked for visual materials of a minor engaged in sexual activity or explicit nudity.
Warrants say the crimes happened in Beaufort and St. Helena Island between February and March.
Investigations are being carried out by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, the Beaufort Police Department, the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office, the Hardeeville Police Department, the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations.
