Facebook Credited With Capture Of Errant Sex Offender

Law enforce­ment offi­cers in Williams, Defi­ance and Pauld­ing coun­ties say it was Face­book users that gave them a hand in locat­ing a reg­is­tered sex offender who had ille­gally moved to North­west Ohio.

The Williams County Sheriff’s Office along with other area law enforce­ment offi­cers, had been search­ing the area for 64 year old Terry Froelich, who is reg­is­tered as a per­ma­nent res­i­dent of Hamil­ton, Alabama after he was con­victed last Feb­ru­ary of sex­ual impo­si­tion.

Froelich report­edly has fam­ily in north­west Ohio, and he was seen in Defi­ance County about two weeks ago accord­ing to the offi­cial report, sleep­ing in a white van with Alabama license plates.

Froelich made a big mis­take. He had failed to notify author­i­ties of his where­abouts.

The word went out on the Williams County Sheriff’s Office Face­book page Tues­day. It was only a cou­ple of hours later, that Froelich was found in Pauld­ing County. Law enforce­ment offi­cials say it was no ques­tion, Face­book users were key in locat­ing Froelich, just another sign of chang­ing times, from the old, slow, paper trail, to the fast mov­ing dig­i­tal world we live in today.