A man accused of abducting and sexually abusing a seven-year-old girl nearly 40 years ago was taken into custody after he was found living in the Philippines.
Young Tom Talmadge, 70, was finally arrested by authorities at his home in the Asian country last year after authorities with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office worked with local officials to track him down.
He was finally extradited back to the United States last month to face charges of sexual battery on a victim younger than 12, performing a lewd and lascivious act on a child and kidnapping to commit a felony on a child, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office announced last week.
The charges stem from a November 20, 1989 incident in which a man approached a seven-year-old girl inside the now-shuttered Tampa Lanes bowling alley, gave her coins to play arcade games and then lured her to his car, Fox 13 reports.
He then allegedly sexually abused the young girl before dropping her back off at another bowling alley several hours later.
When the investigation first began, authorities said biological evidence yielded a viable DNA profile, but soon the case went cold.
Young Tom Talmadge, 70, has been accused of abducting and sexually abusing a seven-year-old girl nearly 40 years ago
Talmadge allegedly approached the young girl at the now-shuttered Tampa Lanes bowling alley, gave her coins to play arcade games and then lured her to his car where he sexually assaulted her
Still deputies at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office kept investigating – again entering the DNA profile in a national database in 2004, and again finding no matches, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
But as DNA technology improved, investigators resubmitted the evidence for further testing in 2022, and reinterviewed the victim, witnesses officers who originally responded to the scene.
That investigation led to Talmadge.
By December 2024, the sheriff’s office and Homeland Security Investigations began working with Philippine law enforcement to track Talmadge down and obtain a sample of his DNA.
He was ultimately found in February 2025 living in Cavite, and one month later, testing confirmed his DNA matched the samples preserved from the crime scene, authorities said.
A warrant for Talmadge’s arrest was then issued on March 21, 2025, and he was arrested by Philippine authorities on April 23, 2025.
One year later, Talmadge was extradited to the United States – arriving in the country on April 22, 2026.
He is now being held at Rikers Island in New York City and will be brought to Hillsborough County, Florida in the coming weeks, the Tampa Bay Times reports.
Talmadge was finally arrested by authorities in the Philippines last year and has now been extradited back to the US to face charges
In a news release last year, the Philippines’ Immigration Commissioner, Joel Anthony Viado, said Talmadge’s arrest was in line with the government’s ‘strengthened drive against foreign sex predators and pedophiles.
‘We will continue to work closely with international counterparts to protect Filipino children and uphold justice,’ he vowed.
‘Foreign fugitives who commit crimes against children will find no refuge here,’ Viado added.
