



MONTESANO, Wash. -- Anthony Eloy Perez, 23, a JBLM soldier, was charged Wednesday with second-degree child rape involving a 12-year-old girl.



The girl's mother spotted the man and her daughter in the backseat of a car near their Elma home engaged in a sexual act, and the mother used "physical force" to stop the man from leaving once she confronted him, Grays Harbor County sheriff's deputies said.



According to court documents released Wednesday, the mother called Elma police at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday to report her 12-year-old daughter missing. She told police that she believed her daughter had left to meet a boy after receiving a text message from one of her daughter's friends who wrote that the girl was meeting the boy "to lose her virginity."



Police and the mother began driving around Elma to look for the girl. At about 12:30 a.m. Monday, the mother spotted a parked car with two people inside and she shined a flashlight inside. She saw that a man was with her daughter inside and both were naked under a blanket. She attempted to pull her daughter out of the car.



"A struggle ensued and ... mother struck the defendant, causing him later to develop a black eye and to have some blood on his face," the documents said.



When the defendant got into the driver's seat, the girl's mother grabbed the car keys and told him he wasn't going anywhere, the documents said.



The defendant stated that he met the girl on KIK, a chatting app popular with teens and young adults, and that they had been communicating for about a month, and that the girl told him she was 14.



Police said the defendant admitted at the scene that he had sex with the girl in the car.



The girl was taken to a Lacey area hospital for treatment and examination, deputies said.



Detectives are working with military investigators to see if there are potentially more victims.