CAPE GIRARDEAU – A Southeast Missouri man who recorded his sexual abuse of children was sentenced Thursday to 40 years in prison.
Lantz D. Crawford, 26, of Ripley County, near Doniphan, recorded his sexual abuse of five girls, ages 2, 4, 5, 6 and 6, between the summer of 2024 and late 2025. In December of 2025, the mother of the 4-year-old girl contacted the Ripley County Sheriff’s Office after her daughter reported the abuse. Crawford’s phone was seized and investigators found child sexual abuse material (CSAM) depicting young children.
“This is one of the worst cases involving crimes against children I’ve encountered in my 23 years with the FBI, period. The abhorrent sexual abuse inflicted on these five preschool-aged children is beyond the pale,” said Special Agent in Charge Chris Crocker of the FBI St. Louis Division. “Lantz Crawford deliberately positioned himself to gain access to vulnerable children. He exploited the trust of single mothers who believed he was offering a helping hand, volunteering to watch their children or drive them places, when in reality, he was creating opportunities to prey upon them.”
Crawford pleaded guilty in June in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau to five counts of production of child pornography.
The Ripley County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI and the Missouri State Highway Patrol investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Hunter prosecuted the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.